Insanity's Seduction
by NightDove
Summary: 15yr old Christine Daae undergoes the physcological turbulence of love and lust in this suspenseful tale of manipulation, deception, and murder. EC
1. A Toad in the Hole

_**Insanity's Seduction**_

_Chapter One: A Toad in the Hole_

She woke from her restless slumber. The air was heavy with morning fog pouring from her open bedroom window. She immediately felt something wrong as she jerked her head to her dresser clock.

_Oh God._

She sprung up from her mattress and dashed down the hall to the dancer's shower rooms only to find the normally crackling showerheads dripping from after use. The many giddy girls that prepared for their routinely dance rehearsal, snapping their towels playfully at each other's fleeing bottoms, and cut each other in line to use the mirrors were all absent. The sight made her stomach sink as she stripped off her evening sleepwear and rushed underneath the closest showerhead.

"Miss Daae, why so early? You need not to lose your precious sleep, after all, what's twenty-five minutes going to hurt our pitiful **dress rehearsal?**"

Christine guiltily concentrated on her pale feet while her finger nervously intertwined with each other behind her hunched, drenched, back. Her springy curls still leaked from a desperate shower, her scalp already ached from the raking of her impatient fingers. She knew she caught Madame Giry on a bad day; her crude sarcasm and temperamental eyes always masked the normally calm and patient woman when her mood went sour. Christine nervously ushered herself into her place in the chorus line with her eyes never leaving the floor as she felt the stare of her song-mates follow her until her last step.

"_Madame!_"

Christine cringed as she felt the floor vibrate from the head singer's latest temper tantrum stomping towards the Madame.

"_Merde!_" Hissed the instructor under her breath "Its Carlotta, start your routine while I handle this, from the top."

Christine and the other chorus girls nodded as the conductor gave the initiating flute note that would begin the merciless thunderstorm of stomping feet, twirling costume gowns, and harmonizing chorus melodies.

As Christine acted on cue and swayed her arms above her head, she managed to catch scraps of Madame Giry's and Carlotta's argument.

"…If only you had a dedication the strength of your arrogance!"

"I need not hear of your lectures! Soon, I won't have to be obligated to hear of you, or any of these pitiful girls!"

"Well the fact remains that you don't Carlotta, so assume your position and sing your part! This is c'est fini!"

Christine knew this day would be hard and possibly intolerable, but she held her breath and danced hoping maybe a good effort today will ease up the Madame's mood.

Carlotta's dress flapped violently as she marched to the front of the staged in her ragged wedding dress costume, pushing rudely past the dancing chorus girls.

"Love held by the weakest string!

Laced by a single ring!

Blinded by the white veil

Reality forever concealed!"

Carlotta faced her co-star, Piangi, dressed in his groom's tuxedo as she sang to him in her broad, vibrant vocals.

"_You entice me with your bittersweet wine_

_And enchant me in your spell_

_You played my heart well!_"

"_And now you're mine!_" Piangi bellowed in his alto pride.

As the chorus girls in their bridesmaids' outfits put their hands over their mouths in surprise, Christine took the cue with nervousness; her big cue was coming up now.

As the entire Opera house echoed in song, Christine braced herself as the chorus girls began to take hold of her.

"_I want to marry you_

_Marry you_

_Mary me!_"

Carlotta sang her final line, holding the note. "_**Marry me!**_"

As Carlotta's note ascended, Christine stiffened her slender legs as her dance-mates lifted her high above all the rest, the human pyramid reaching almost to the top of the curtains.

Christine stood straight and sang in her chorus backup.

Her legs shook a bit from the balance, but ultimately, she kept upright and let out a sigh of relief when her feet touched solid ground behind the closed curtains.

"Much better, but Miss Daae I expect more balance, I want no chances taken on opening night."

"Yes, Madame."

As the Madame turned away breaking through the crowd, Carlotta's sickening voice gurgles in her ear.

"Yes, Miss Dim, do you think you can handle that?"

Christine quiet and tried ignoring the smirking the arrogant eighteen-year old, with her wide smile and crooked lips, her shocking blue eyeshade made her eyes gleam with all the more taunt.

"Why so silent, little toad? Have a croak in your voice?"

Now, Christine's dance-mates began turning their attention to her humiliation.

"Shut up, Carlotta, why don't you go spray some of that stuff in your mouth and try sounding like a human singing for once?"

"Oh! Little toad has a voice! Unfortunately, not mine, so tell me, if I sound so horrible, why don't you take the stage?"

Christine stayed quiet, her cheeks burning from the torture of her bullying.

"Come now, sing!" Right there, Carlotta pushed the helpless chorus girl powerfully through the stage curtains, as she lost her balance and fell to her knees right in the front stage, her knees skidding to a burning hault.

Carlotta rushed through the curtains leading a tribe if nosy chorus girls with a triumphant smile on her. "Little toad cannot sing!"

As the crowd of chorus girls began to giggle or stare at her with idle expressions, Christine jumped off the edge of the stage and dashed into the darkness of the inner chambers, not knowing the entire Opera Populaire or its mysterious paths, not caring, only wanting to get away from them all so they wouldn't see her glossy eyes outlined with tears.

"The little toad returns to her swamp!" She heard Carlotta howl in delight before Christine disappeared behind an unknown door.


	2. A Fantasy's Lullaby

_Chapter Two: A Fantasy's Lullaby

* * *

_

The chilly darkness of this strange newly discovered corridor frightened the fleeing chorus girl. Her angry feet, her rushing mind, and her trembling will drove her slender legs with such great force that she never knew she possessed. Her echoing pants chased after her as she sprinted down the hall, following her deeper and deeper into the maze-like opera house.

Only when her tiny bare feet slid off from some slime that covered the forgotten corridor did reality once more hit her; more precisely on the side of her cheekbone and burnt on her throbbing knees.

The splitting pain crushed her sore to the bone. Her shaky legs quivered against the cold, hard concrete. The putrid odor of this dark oblivion was enough to make her eyes water.

That is, if they weren't already.

She whimpered as she pulled herself to sit up from the ground, feeling her cracking knees buckling uncontrollably together from the pain. She tasted blood that seeped between the cracks of her dried lips; her slime-caked fingers found the cut that trailed along from just beneath her eye socket to her lower cheekbone. In the privacy of her own disgrace, she laid back forward on the floor, feeling her mouth twist and her lips stretch, her nostrils flare in a desperate fight.

She felt pathetic not even having the spine to win a battle against herself.

She gave in to the overwhelming power of humility and loneliness that ate at her soul every day, that rewound in her dreams every night, and laughed at her rehearsals every morning.

She screamed in pain and anger against the deaf ground, slamming her petite fist at its cold and emotionless face, cursing at it between each reality-wearied cry. Not even the ground of which laid beneath her feet would grant her the courtesy to show any acknowledgment of her.

She rose from her bony ankles and treaded down the endless corridor, hopelessly fighting the air-desperate spasms of her bruised chest. Gasping back in her tears, and walking off her crushing pain, she forced her slimed feet to carry on until she found another door that would ultimately lead her back into the chorus girls' dormitories.

She studied herself in her own mirror. Found her injuries to be a stingy red scratch flawing the left side of her complexion-perfected face, a sensitive soft-pink spot on her cheek that she assumed will be the primary area of bruise discoloration would soon initiate. Her ragged bridesmaid gown was now saturated in greenish slime that reeked of ancient filth and decay. Her bony knees resembled gray leather rags, her hair oozed with sweat and slime.

She then took the nerve to stare at herself in the eye. She scowled at herself through the mirror and mentally chided herself for even approaching the good mirror to abuse its courtesy with her presence. There she was, young Christine of fourteen, thin, frail, and weak. Her eyebrows furrowed in disgust at her brunette spider web of hair, her large, insect-like eyes, her hunched, bony shoulders that towered up to her round, bat-like ears.

What were the heavens _thinking_ when they created a worm like her?

She turned away hastily from the mirror and disrobed herself from her thick and filth-heavy dress as soon as she stepped under the first showerhead she spotted in the chorus girls' shower-room. Unlike this prior morning, she was no longer alarmed to see none of her dance-mates skipping about in the deserted wetland.

As she returned to her dorm, wrapped in her drenched towel and changed into her usual pale-yellow nightgown, she heard a knock on her door.

She mentally sighed, but was determined to show no more defeat to Carlotta or anyone else. "Come in." She allowed patiently.

It was Meg's sunshine-golden hair that first appeared from behind the jarred door, and then came her perfect, rose-kissed face until lastly her fully developed figure. Her face bore concern but her body language revealed ignorance and blissful obliviousness. Christine mentally groaned at the sight of her only friend, wishing her unbridled bliss would kindly take its innocence somewhere else. She bore a wide, actress-strict smile and gestured her friend a seat on her bed.

"Meg, what brings you here this night?"

"The affairs of this day, my friend," Meg began as she locked eyes now onto Christine's. "Are you feeling better?"

Christine fought the embarrassment that began to warm in her swollen cheeks. "I wish not to talk about it."

Meg nodded understandingly as she eyed Christine's newest facial accessories. "Never you mind about that Carlotta" Meg gently chided as she ever so tenderly soothed the scratch."She's merely an ignorant twit with an arrogance as thick as her skull."

Christine half-reluctantly stretched a smile. Oh, the irony.

"She blindly believes that she is now the queen of England just because she outages us all by a few measly unimportant years. The old bag!"

Christine couldn't resist a small chuckle at the image of Carlotta, ugly and wrinkled with sagging breasts and draping skin, parasitic towards an unlucky wheelchair. Whilst she, the unlikely blossom, would be young and strong, prancing gallantly and gracefully across her stage with the world in her palm.

Ah, wishful thinking is oh so bittersweet.

She envied Meg's unsinkable smile and unfaltering energy, wishing for once she'd be the spirit of someone's hope.

But the events of the day made her weary, and she let out an unknown yawn. Meg got up with a replenished smile and led her friend to her bed.

"Nevertheless, today is merely a day to forget. Never mind you of Carlotta or anyone else, you will be fine. Now, let sleep be your only worry for now. We have a big day for the morrow, and these strong legs must be well and ready." She cooed as she playfully tapped Christine's covered shin.

Christine smiled realistically for the first time in hours. "Goodnight Meg."

Meg merely smiled warmlyand closed the door behind her.

Christine then felt the weight of the bed begin to pull on her, the undeniable coax of its mysterious covers of security and fantasy; the allurement of dreams to entice her never-resting mind.

She closed her eyes and began playing a speculation of the Opera's performance tomorrow, conducting her fantasies into one magical musical all her own. An orchestra of applause, a drumming storm of the ballet dancer's stomping feet, Carlotta's symphonic apologies of immaturity, however, was the part that made most beautiful music.

So wonderful was her secret retreat of fantasy, she could almost hear music in her sleep.

Wait…was it music?

She couldn't tell.

_Sleep my innocent angel_

_Let your song take wing_

_And when the sun shall break your night_

_Let music entice your dove-like flight_

_So we may make music together again_

_When you dream_

That voice.

She wouldn't know, her song-heavy eyelids would not open.


	3. Like a Snowflake in the Wind

Chapter Three: _Like a Snowflake in the Wind

* * *

_

It was its flawless crimson petals that first met her sight when she opened her eyes, its sweet aroma that welcomed the blossoming morn that leaked through her white curtains.

Her large eyes narrowed at the black silk-ribbon that embraced around the evergreen stem.

She rose from her bed, still eyeing the new visitor, coiled her thin fingers tenderly around it, enveloping in its enchanting scent.

She scanned the room slowly, looking all around for any sign of haply-unknown guests.

She shifted the idea peacefully to the back of her mind and hurried off to the shower-room.

The usual slippery pitter-patter of the giddy chorus girls was about once more as Christine broke into the steam-curtained showerheads. She found a showerhead and began to disrobe and allow the trickle of the lukewarm water run down her smooth back, avoiding at all costs the eyes of others. She felt the eyes of each coterie pressuring down all their silent criticism of her, wishing that somehow she could understand what, exactly, made her so different.

Suddenly she felt a tap on her behind and found it relieving for the first time in what seemed like ages to see Meg as her giggling self twittering behind her.

Christine let out a small giggle herself as Meg's long hands clasped over her small.

"Christine, my sweet, today is the day! After this noon, the entire city of Paris will be in our hands!" She squealed as she huddled underneath the neighboring showerhead.

"My, my, you seem to be a little bit more than optimistic this morning, Meg." Christine toyed.

Meg's mackintosh cheeks just indulged all the more in her grin. "There's reason to be, my friend."

Christine arched a slender dark eyebrow. "Oh?"

Meg leaned in closer, whispering just barely above the cackling of the pouring water. "Do you want to know a secret?" She queried with her hazel eyes lighting in a rare twinkle of mischief.

Christine nearly flinched. "Yes?"

Meg discreetly turned her head to make sure none but themselves were near the eavesdropping showerheads.

"If all goes well tonight…" Meg whispered, "…Carlotta's fiancé cannot buy the chorus of the opera house."

"_Excuse me?_"

"Its something no one knows yet, only I know because it's my mother who is being negotiated with Arthur—Carlotta's fiancé—to consent with the management of her ballerinas and chorus girls and also the position of the new patron."

"Why does he want to…purchase us?" The word made her feel objectified.

"No one knows, my mother speculates it must be for his darling bride-to-be, who wishes to take my mother's profession and try to take control of the opera house."

None of this was making any sense. Nor was it making her feel any better; the water down her spine gave her a shiver. "Is that why she's been all the more rude and arrogant? Because she supposes she will order us anyways in the near future?"

"True. But that is if Monsieur DeLadrith believes the chorus may be either in danger of any harm of the dancers or public neglect since he owns the entire populaire, you see. So the only way he can take away my mother's profession is if he feels the opera house's destiny is not best put into her hands."

"Well, such ideas can be forgotten, the opera house has never been in a better condition under your mother's order." Christine waved away with a flap of her towel that she began to friction around her wet clomp of hair. "Anyways, I think I'll prepare in my dorm this evening, since it's the anniversary, you know."

Meg looked at her sincerely between the tears of the showerhead, with her wet hand; she stretched it out from the barrier of the falling water and soothed her friend on the shoulder.

"I will see you tonight."

* * *

Christine locked her dorm room quietly behind herself as she stepped over to her dresser; she looked at herself in her mirror with a nonjudgmental and idle stare. She caught herself in a trance where she felt out of place from her body, as though she were someone else looking at this partially nude young girl drenched in her white towel. Her scratch turned into a burgundy thread, her skin was a milky cream compared to the darkness of her brunette-maroon hair.

She then became bold and dropped her towel and tried studying herself as a regular chorus girl.

Her imagery failed.

She pulled on her slip with a sigh and then turned her attention to the single picture on her dresser, in simple, black-polished wood was a classic photo portrait of Gustave Daae.

Oh, how _precious_ was that name.

She reached over and gently grazed her fingers over the delicate glass that fenced between her helpless fingers and her memory of a thousand dreams. His bushy, crumpled eyebrows always brought out a world's of emotion to whoever would have the fortune to be caught in them. His deep burnt-wood brown eyes always bore a heaviness of security and protection. His combed, difficult dark-wood hair elevated in such a gentle manner, like the sweetness of a friendly bear from a long-forgotten fairy tale.

She knelt on her knees and recited a mental prayer in his honor. Then gently kissed the glass that came between them, ignoring the silent tears that trickled down the smooth frame.

It has been seven years to this day, that she lost her only angel.

She could almost hear the sweet sorrow of the wailing violin, stuttering, whining, and singing under his genius hands. The faint wail of the depressed violin enticed her ears like the sweetest wine in her blood; the sound was enough to make her blink back burning tears.

She bit off more than she could chew when she tried swallowing the throbbing lump in her throat; her efforts to deny defeat only resulted in her falling to her knees and sobbing without an ounce of control.

She cried and cried until her chest grew sore with its untimely spasms. She pulled herself up from her moistened carpet and wiped her tears viciously away, hoping no one heard her cries. Her scalp ached from the pulling of her hair when frustrations and depresstion began to boil together in her weakened heart. Her gums were soft and even perhaps able to be kneaded from the constant gritting of her teeth.

Outside her door, she heard the other chorus girls skipping about, giggling, laughing, and enjoying themselves in their innocent sugarcoated, carnation-sweet world.

It was no wonder she could never fit in, she was destined for solitude since the moment she saw her father sink in cold, unfeeling earth seven long years ago.

She dragged her feet over to the closet where her costume hung, a pretty antique closet she possessed since she was living with her father in a house beside a forgotten sea; one of the last possessions she held from her early-aborted childhood. The old sea-wood was rough and chipped from age and memories; it reeked with colorful images and love. She still smelt the seawater imbedded inside its every carve, remembered the first day it was presented to her, flawless and majestic, just like her father himself.He made it so special just for her…almost like he knew he would have to leave her with something of his…

She grasped the handles tenderly and opened the door with patience and care only armed with her slip and loose corset. She just barely had a hold on the hanger that held her costume when the lights in her dorm gracefully dimmed to where she could hardly see her nose against the poisoned gray-yellow light.

She instinctively wheeled around to see who was there when something held her wrist that hung on the hanger gently, but firmly. She was stunned and paralyzed where she stood, not even having the stomach to turn her head to catch a glimpse of her unannounced guest.

"Be afraid not." Was all she heard from a voice that came from all corners of the room.

She swallowed. "W-Why came you here?"

"Your consent."

"_Monsieur_?"

"Promise me you'll return to this room alone, we have work to attend to."

"Yes master."

His grip pulled her deeper between the open doors of the closet; her ankles now met the edge of the wooden border. The silky-cool leather of his gloved fingers fondled between the slits of hers. She felt warm breath on her neck, and couldn't help but start to tilt her head back slightly, enveloping in this sweet voice she heard for so long.

Wait…how did she recognize this voice?

Was she perhaps lost in another one of her dreams?

Were her longings and desperations finally catching up to her?

The locked grip around her tiny wrist said otherwise.

Suddenly her wrist was free, but then her chest tightened.

"I know it to be your father's death anniversary, my sweet…" He said in the same tone as she felt the ties of her corset begin to construct around her thin chest; his large hand rested on her hip for security. She blushed when she realized how bare she was, and hoped hedidn't feel the shiver through her back as his hand brushed so close to her blooming breasts. "…My words to you are not to let it tether on your soul tonight, or your balance will be lost."

She hesitated, wondering if she could manage such a difficult task. "Yes, master."

After he secured the last knot on her corset, he kept his hold on her hips and ever so slightly sunk his fingers hungrily into her young meat, slightly plumpwith ripeness and desire. The small gesture made her tingle in strange new ways she never knew before. She could now barely feel the sweet pout of his lips touch the standing hairs on the nape of her neck.

"I will be here when you return."

Suddenly, the room resumed its broad daylight-like stimulation as if it had just minutes ago. She whirled around to find her mysterious master but only saw the bland interior of the four small walls of her closet, her hand still clutched on the hanger of her costume. It was as if time stood still, and she shared a moment withher stranger in suspended animation.

_'My God, I must have been dancing too hard lately…'_ She tried persuading herself as she pulled on her ragged costume and applied the basic gray eyeshade around and underneath her eyes.

As she hurried out of her dorm to meet with Meg, she forgot the evidence that was left behind: her tightened corset, her excited body, and her newly-set heart.


	4. The Webbed Hands of Glory

_Chapter Four: The Webbed Hands of Glory_

* * *

The muffled sound of a talkative audience, the squeak of pulling down their spring-up chairs, and giggling chorus girls all melded into her numb mind. It was mid-act already and the chorus climax-ending was rapidly approaching. It seemed the world was perfect and oblivious to the fact that Gustave Daae has been seven years dead. 

A couplet of giggling, fame-infatuated, chorus girls fled by in their bridesmaids' costumes squealing in utter delight.

She'd love nothing more than to see them trip on their witch-like noses and spontaneously break every bone in their greasy bodies.

'_Shut your putrid mouths…_' Christine mentally cursed to them. '_…My father is dead, have you no respect?_'

She tried to hold her anger and frustrations until after their performance, remembering and trying her best to obey to her Master's word. His advice, she realized, was more than just a clever metaphor but a harsh reality; the thought of her father felt like a weight twice her strength clinging onto her helpless shoulders.

"Christine!"

She turned around and once again found it a faint pester to see Meg twittering about like a drunken hummingbird, swaying from flower to flower, indulged in its honey-sweet nectar. In Meg's case, her nectar was her ability to entice and amuse almost every other chorus girl in the act. She envied Meg's ability to make fast friends with her never-failing tongue able to speak words of charm and charisma.

_Little hummingbird, legs of twigs…_

"You haven't costumed completely! Go to my mother's office and get a bosom for your dress!" It was then did Christine realize the large hump sticking out from her rump, as did every chorus girl. "Go and hurry, our act is coming very soon!"

_Go flutter away before I break your shins…_

She hated it when Meg tapped her buttocks sometimes.

_Pretty little parasite, mind of fig…_

She turned and hurried towards Madame Giry's quarters.

_And nestle away in your fairy-tale bin!_

As she entered the Madame's quarters, she entered tentatively, hoping not to have walked in on another one of her moods.

"Madame?"

"She's not here."

She turned around and saw Carlotta freshening her alarming makeup, waiting for her cue to return to her rightful place on stage. Christine tensed and stiffened, but Carlotta ignored her with gusto as she tilted her head at all angles and her eyes shifted in all directions adoring every patch of her self-believed beauty.

She never believed in reincarnation, but Christine might have considered a more twisted spirit of Narcissus had made an unfortunate bodily host out of Carlotta.

The idea almost made her risk a smile.

Little did she know, Carlotta caught the curve of her lip, and only silently responded to it with a curl of her own.

"You know little to—um, Christine—I know there has been some difficulty between us lately, and since we are both of the same general entertainment cliché, I found it in myself only selfish and crude of me to have ridiculed you lately for petty reasons…"

Christine's ears now only became specific, and honed completely on Carlotta's every word. Was this really happening? Has Carlotta suddenly gotten a cranial pulse?

"…So I say, I apologize…_Christine_…" She almost bit her tongue at the name. "…And let us try to perform in co-respect. Yes?"

Christine felt her stomach lighten and felt a bit of her father's burden lighten up from her body. She immediately flashed a wide grin.

"**Yes**…" She nearly blurted. "Thank you Carlotta!"

"Oh, it is _I_ who should thank _you_…" Carlotta said as she forged a reluctant smile as she held up a bosom. "You need this, I see."

Christine nodded enthusiastically. "Yes."

"Turn around and I'll put it on for you."

She happily obeyed, hardly able to wait to tell Meg as she heard the performance's music begin to bleed through the curtains.

Carlotta thanked the noise as she took hold of her little accomplice, sipping it between the cuffs of the bosom, hoping the music had muffled its croaking.

"Our cue is coming up now, we must be going."

Christine galloped on cue, swayed her hands with intensity, her legs beckoned to her every command, feeling her entire body and mind in complete unison. This night was going to be fantastic, Meg looked so beautiful in her bridesmaid costume with for once the veil of Christine's self-imaged green envy. Carlotta looked precious with her shocking blue eyeshade and even the slimy Joseph Bouquet appeared handsome from his eye above the curtains.

As she saw Piangi stroll onto the stage in his tuxedo, she braced herself, this time, with excitement as the crowd of chorus girls began to huddle around her.

"_…I want to marry you!_"

The chorus girls boomed into their echo. "_Marry you!_"

"_Marry you!_"

"_Marry me!_"

She then felt her ankles being grasped and felt her stomach ascend to almost the top frame of the stage as Christine spread her arms apart above her head.

This was her silent moment of glory; she beamed a smile to herself as she began to feel the acceptance of the chorus girls, a warm light from life flash down upon her.

Everything would now be all right.

Carlotta stepped front-stage now, and Christine wondered if she imagined her stealing a smirk her way before she sang her big finale.

"_**Marry me!**_"

As Carlotta's note ascended, something ascended in Christine, perhaps a lift from the angels…

But wait, why were angels…_slimy?_

Christine looked over to her shoulder and saw something retracting and indulging, in and out over again.

Then it croaked loudly in her ear.

She immediately jerked her legs in disgust and panic. The shock shook her so badly that it came only so much later did she feel the powerful thump of her lower back crashing against the polished-wood floor.

Only then, could she see the rest of the chorus girl cast sprawled on the floor and hear both the gasps and laughter of the delighted audience.

Christine's eyes grew nearly twice their size as jerked her head all around in panic, hoping if there was some sort of supernatural creature that would verify it this being her nightmare.

That's when she looked out into the audience for said creature, when only she was met with many pointing fingers and jeering faces.

That when the toad hopped out from it's hiding and jumped onto her head, it's webbed toes sinking into her frazzled hair, croaking like a barking hound out to the audience.

It was then did she feel her tears drop onto the backs of her trembling hands.

This was indeed her moment.

* * *

Author's Note: When Christine reffered to Carlotta as Narcissus, Narcisuss was a man in greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection. 


	5. What a Violin Remembers

**Author's Notice:** Thank you all who read my story for your patience. I had a bit of technical difficulties but now I eagerly return to my work. On with the story.

* * *

_Chapter Five: What a Violin Remembers_

* * *

As the burgundy curtain closed before her eyes she immediately heard rushing feet bleed through the curtains.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I, and the opera populaire apologize to you for this disgraceful performance. I can tell you that such performances will not be repeated again. Thank you for your patience and patronage, refunds will be held at the lobby and a thousand apologies from I and the rest of the opera house. Thank you and goodnight."

Before she could get on her feet, the curtain flared open and she suddenly felt an iron-breaking grasp on both her tiny wrists. She was hoisted onto her buckling feet and she felt them practically drag on the smooth wood.

"Come…_come!_" Monsieur DeLadrith spat between his painful yanks on her arms. He pulled her until he was face-to-face with the porcelain-white Madame. "Is _this_ what your idea of a well-organized chorus line is? Falling dancers and a massacre of sprawled girls?"

That's when her toad hopped perched on her shoulder. Immediately, the infuriated Monsieur snatched the toad, gradually squeezing the air out of it.

"And this! You have _toads_ hopping about this place? Absolutely revolting, Madame!"

"I assure you, Monsieur, nothing like this ever happened before! The girl just must have lost balance, lost her movement."

"The only thing that has lost its movement, Madame, is my funds! I have never had such a large refund in all my years of owning this house! Now I cannot risk even the tiniest falter in my operas if I ever hope to get crowds to return to my opera-house!"

"I promise, Monsieur, it will not happen again."

"No, no it will not, Antoinette, because I will not give you a second opportunity to destroy my opera-house."

"_Destroy?_" Madame Giry barked in more anger now. "Monsieur! The opera-house has been nothing less than _tremendous_ under my care!"

"Tremendously bankrupt if left any longer, Madame." Monsieur DeLadrith responded coldly and he turned around with an icy whip from his long trench coat. "I am sorry, Antoinette, but I cannot risk any more chances at my opera-house, you're instructor-career is now over."

"Monsieur! Please, no!"

The plump, elderly man turned on his heel slowly with a grunt in his scowl, letting down the top hat that he was about to put on. His patience was wearing thin, she could tell, by the way he ripped his hands away from buttoning the last button of his coat.

Christine approached him timidly and feebly, as though she were tossed into a den with a bloodthirsty lion.

"Please, Monsieur, it was not Madame Giry's fault! I just—"

"Oh really?" Snarled he as the jowls in his chins slurred her way. "Then tell me, little girl…" He asked her with an ominous glare in his eyes as he suddenly developed a taunting patience. "…Whose fault is it then?"

Christine bit her bottom lip as she felt her tongue rot dry. She instinctively looked around for Carlotta, who seemed to have vanished from the crowd. Not knowing what to say, she cracked as she responded. "I don't…know, she just didn't do anything!"

"Aw, how sweet. An innocent little girl standing up for the only parental figure she has…" He tauntingly coaxed as he wrapped one of his sausage-like fingers in her frazzled hair and hauled her over closer to him. "…I know a lot about you, Miss Daae, I know about your orphanage and how you're almost completely alone, if I were you, I'd recognize my place and keep my mouth clamped tight. Types like yours should be the last to have a voice." He hissed as he yanked his finger away.

Her temper shot up. "Types like yours should heighten their manners and lower their dosage in sweets and wine, you bloated swine!"

She heard a hushed gasp come from the surrounding chorus girls. She thought she might have gotten another hair-yank or perhaps a well-deserved smack across the face. However, she was only met with his hideously ancient face, centimeters away from hers. He was so close she could smell every drop of liquor he ever tasted, every dot of pore stubbed on his large, oily, mirror-like nose.

"Know this, you little ingénue…" He growled at her, her eardrums becoming sore at his anger, she knew he was making sure everyone could hear him. "…I need not waste my energy or precious time on a little…_toad_ like you. If I were you, I'd first grow a spine and then adopt some intelligence to replace that retched tongue of yours! Then I'd develop some posture and learn how to act before a gentleman and show some respect!"

At the moment, he whipped out his black walking-cane and slapped the backs of her knees as she fell helplessly to the floor before him.

As he turned away and began to walk out the backstage exit, he felt something in his top hat; he turned around and faced the broken child without remorse or emotion.

"And take your friend with you." He ended harshly as he tossed the mischievous toad at her knees.

* * *

As she closed the door behind her, she finally undid the knot that held all her willpower together. She collapsed on the floor and bawled, cried, screamed, armed only with her costume to muffle her distresses. She yanked at her hair, slammed her fists on the floor and screamed bloody revenge into the good rags. She continued the routine until her throat was sore, until the fragile bones in her hands nearly broke, until she felt her scalp bleed.

With the last bit of anger she held within her, she ran to her window and busted open its shields as she stuck her head out towards the skies.

"Damn you moon! Damn you stars! Damn the sun and its lights! _Damn you all to bloody **hell**!_" She screamed at the skies until she felt her throat on the verge to bleed.

She then closed the windows and swished the curtains to an overlapping close, so that the retched moon wouldn't shine its light into her dorm.

She then sat down on the seat that was in front of her dresser, and unwillingly looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was wilted and frizzy, her dark-gray eyeshade was messed and drained from her sockets down onto her cheeks. The cut on her cheekbone from a few days ago was still very prominent and the bones of her upper ribs were helplessly visible through her paper-thin skin.

Her shame quickly turned into a brutal self-hatred and disgrace. She quickly grabbed a candleholder that lit the only candle in her dim room and smashed it again and again at her mirror until a completely dark room and a glass splinter in the cuff of her palm told her she had destroyed the object in question.

She bit her lip from the pain and pulled out the shard in her palm. She stiffened a few more whimpers as she smashed her back against the nearest wall, holding herself in pity sinking her nails in her flesh in anger. She was so weak, so pitiful; she felt she paid her ignorance's price right with her welfare.

It was there when she felt someone else's leather-covered hands cascade over her trembling shoulders, grasping them in a fatherly, yet supportive way.

His deep voice blurred against her nearly deaf ear.

"Come with me."

He took her small hand in his large and led her through some longer portion of her room she never knew existed. Her mind was both uninterested and fried to care where this stranger was taking her. She only mattered it for her legs to keep going.

It continued to be dark until she saw a midnight blue light glow at the end of a pitch-black corridor. The temperature gradually dropped as her grasp on her arms tightened more. That's when she felt her mysterious escort ravel a slightly heavy cape to drape on her thin body.

Her feet sunk and cushioned in something she suddenly realized was snow, they were just outside the opera populaire and escaping down a path she knew all too well.

"Monsieur?"

"You are safe with me, just keep walking with me, there's something I want to do for you."

Her half-dazed mind never occurred to her to look up at the face of her escort, but all she cared about now was just following with him to where she knew she must be.

She collapsed at the stair's feet, as she silently sobbed, not caring about the snow that now covered her numbing shins. Suddenly feeling a sort of radiating warmth from such a simple name engraved in the concrete. It read the eleven most beautifully assorted letters ever assembled in the human language.

Gustave Daae.

It was his violin's song that began to wail a pretty song of long-lost memories.

Her escort was somewhere she couldn't see, playing the violin under his mastering hands.

Such sweet melodies she hadn't heard in such long, undocumented years.

The sweet cry of this forgotten instrument seduced her ears so well that she drifted off to sleep right there in the suddenly-welcoming snow.


	6. What Prayers are Made of

_Chapter Six: What Prayers are Made of_

* * *

Christine's eyes fluttered open and immediately the new array of midnight blues, violets, and blacks met her unaccustomed eyes. 

"W-Where…?"

She lifted herself up from the unfamiliar swan bed, an involuntary shiver racketing up and down and up her spine when she heard a ghostly hum of an organ far in the distance. Realizing perhaps her brain stem has probably snapped, she tucked her face back into the velvet violet-scarlet pillow and counted the pulses of her throbbing mind.

"Just a dream…just a dream…"

"Was it a lovely one?"

She bolted upright at the sound of his voice and suddenly her chocolate eyes fell on vast, unexplored, subliminal green-blue oceans. They revealed no startle or surprise to her reflex and were perched on top of strong cheekbones, roofed by thick, seemingly permanent crumpled eyebrows.

Wait, her mistake: _eyebrow_, singular.

A thick (perhaps leather?) white mask was plastered onto the right side of his face, concealing the hidden valleys and wonders of this stranger's dark profile; its only window bore a frame around his right eye.

"I would like to hear it." He added, as he held a cup of what seemed like tea to his plump, porcelain lips. At this, he elegantly waved a gloved hand to a nightstand that made a small barrier between her and his sitting form. Placed on it was a classy tray and a single white cup that bled steam through its mouth.

"Monsieur?"

"It's cold, my dear. Have some."

She hesitantly rose up and reached toward the nightstand and grasped the rather warm cup between tightened fingers.

The sweet taste of it swept her in a nearly forgotten satiation and thawed the ice that had been held in her bones for the past infinite days.

She quietly drank greedily, allowing the unsaid remedy to flourish through her body and indulge her veins. Her beseeching body even felt preliminary to take any dancing challenge Madame Giry could throw to her.

**Madame Giry**. _Oh heavens_, what could she do?

"Easy, child. Please, sit back down."

She hardly realized her legs were half-bent over the edge of the bed, warm tea sizzling slightly against her sensitive skin through the spill on her breast.

"No Monsieur, I must leave. I have to—"

"There's nothing you can do. She's already departed."

Christine stood frozen slightly limped over, her eyes locked onto his. She clenched her teeth in fear and her eyebrows sharpen in realization.

"Oh God, what have I…"She breathed between her suddenly empty lungs. "…What have I…?"

"Sit." He said flatly, his voice deep and penetrating.

Her knees buckled and fell back on the bed, her eyes darting to nothing in particular and her fingernails digging into the fabric of the sheets. She never wanted to return back to her dorms, never face Meg or any of the chorus girls. Without the Madame, she'd have no parent, without Meg she'd have no friend.

It was all her fault, she would be all alone.

She absentmindedly felt the smooth leather of his glove caress her soft and petite hand and another brush the tea that already seeped through the top of her bosom.

The familiar reluctant shiver made her eyes snap back into reality.

She looked up at the man and waited until he shortly met her gaze.

"It is _you!_" She managed to breathe. "You're the man who has been my…my…" Her gaze melded into his hypnotic eyes, her mind blurred into a concoction of insecurity and bewilderment. "…_my angel?_"

She could've imagined that almost illegible curl of his lips.

"Yes, my dear. It is I."

He pressed his thumb tenderly on the top of her hand still enclosed in his and brought it to his lips in a formal, business-like kiss.

"It is good to see you like this, Christine."

She could've laughed. Like this, in a stained bridesmaid costume with toad-infested hair and a Venus-fly trap of a mouth? Hardly approachable, but she couldn't help but return his small smile.

"I know what happened last night, and there was nothing you could've done to protect your instructor from her departure."

She shook her head ever so slightly. He couldn't have understood her jelly-like legs and panicky spasms. He didn't know the tons of weight that was shackled to her enslaved mind.

"That is not true, monsieur."

He waved a strong hand at that and signaled that she should speak no more, the kind of gesture you don't dare defy.

"Please, my sweet, Erik."

What a handsome name.

"Hardly a place to lose a pulse over this all. Perhaps it'd be time for me to return you back to your dorm." He stated as he gracefully rose from his seat and began turning away.

She was faster. "Mons—um, Erik?" She asked as she had a soft hand on his shoulder, begging for him to face her.

He obliged, she suddenly found herself feeling hot in her cheeks when she realized how close his turn had made them. It granted an opportunity for her to really study those vast, illegible eyes. Even against all the candlelight that surrounded them, his face seemed untouched by the light and somehow forever caught under an invisible veil of shadow and darkness. His long and thick eyelashes roofed over his speculative eyes and added even more mystery to this already unfathomable creature.

How she wanted to get lost in those labyrinths of beauty and passion and thaw out this icy mask that seemed to be her only boundary.

"It was you who played that violin last night, right?"

"Yes."

She kept in her position, and relived her final moments of that night in the snow. The lullaby of those angelic notes and melodies coaxing her into her heavy sleep; she then lowered her eyes and unknowingly sought out those large hands.

He made an involuntary shiver when he felt her fingers pressing through the leather if his gloves. A strange, new electric volt surging through his veins suddenly ignited a forbidden flame in his eyes as he patiently allowed her to hold his hand.

She pulled at the single button at his wrist that locked on the glove and then tugged off the object in question.

He gasped under his breath at the bare touch of his student, her fingers and palms that caressed between the slits of his fingers and over the hills of his tough palms.

These hands possessed God's musical genius.

The fire that burned in his bleeding heart and danced in his unsure eyes instinctively pulled away his bare hand that had until that moment been used for nothing more than music and murder.

_My God, what is happening to me?_

His retrieved his quivering hand and insecurely reworked the glove to cover it, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from hers.

She watched him as he fiddled with his glove, analyzing her situation and filling in the blanks of everything that happened to her, not noticing the burn in her eyes for not blinking.

"Erik…thank you so much for helping me through this time and for all of my life…" She said in a dream-caught daze. "…you have no idea what's been happening with me lately and having you to mentor and watch over me is all I could ever want…" She filed through the thoughts in her mind, trying to find more needed words to say.

There was just so goddamn much to tell.

He looked up at her with eyes of sorrow and understanding, not wanting to tell her that he did indeed know of all the misery that had been raining down upon her.

He just wanted to shelter her from this disgusting world and protect her forever, whisk her under his cape to a magical oblivion where only he and she could coexist in musical harmony.

But his prayer was answered closely when he suddenly felt her thin arms lock around his neck.

"Thank you so much, Erik." She whispered into his heart, trying to swallow the lump of loneliness that was throbbing in her throat.

He became paralyzed with this precious venom that had attacked and left all the senses in his body obsolete. His arms spread apart on either side of her, limp from shock, his fingers outstretched and flinching desperately trying to move again.

The best he could manage was pathetically bending his hands inwards to her, but his stiff arms never responded.

She finally let go of him and looked into his shocked and slightly widened eyes, allowing them to see her glassy own. She gave him an innocent smile of gratitude and stepped away from him so he could finally react.

For what seemed like an eternity of absorbing such sudden acts, he swallowed and stretched his hand out to her; their eyes exchanging understanding and longing desires.

"Let me take you back."

* * *

**Author's Notice**: Thank you all who have reviewed thus far. Consrtuctuve cirism is always welcomed. The plot is now comming. 


	7. Toads Don't Lie

**Author's Notice: **This may just be me, but I think this chapter is quite a bit longer. If that's the case, this is just a friendly warning. :) The plot is now beginning to surface.

* * *

_Chapter Seven: Toads Don't Lie_

* * *

She debated quickly in her mind whether she would take his hand to leave. Right now, returning to her dorms was what she wanted the least, but she knew she had to face the rest of the chorus girls sooner or later. She swallowed her pride and accepted the hand that beckoned for hers.

She wanted to stay with him forever, stay asleep in that warm, safe swan bed.

He gestured her towards the boat and signaled the single space in the front was her seat.

As she felt him behind her, gracefully beginning to take the boat into a path she allowed her fingers to graze over her goose bumped arms, suddenly feeling her skin needy.

Not knowing how exactly to digest her behavior, he began to feel unfamiliar longings and desires boil into his blood silently. The desperate, almost urgent way she held his fingers made him actually feel the loneliness that evaporated from her very flesh. As good of an actress as she was, she held a simulation of night in her eyes that she could not hide even against her angelic-white bridesmaid costume. Her tear-smeared eyeshade had staled under her eyes and over her rose-kissed cheeks. He closed his eyes and mentally studied his greatest masterpiece…

His student.

"_My precious student_…" He breathed under whisper.

He opened his eyes once more and realized what a rare breed she was: a creature of nocturnal creation with the innocent beauty of a God-borne angel. That clean, untouched innocence of day gift-wrapped in nights colors; she was a psychological mutant.

He never saw a more beautiful deformation.

He mentally laughed at his own thought sorrowfully, oh the irony.

He kept the boat going until he realized the corridors as one of the last before he'd be back at her mirror.

"Erik, why'd you bring me there?"

He was thrown off by the disturbed silence but quickly regained his awareness.

"Your little…"He paused to clear his throat. "…_friends_ were in your dorm looking for you…"

She felt his stomach clench in nervousness and apprehension.

"…feeling that you might not want to be disturbed after such a night, I found it best if you spent the night with me instead."

She turned around slightly at the last part and stuttered a shy, embarrassed smile.

Immediately, he wished he could retrieve his words back into his clumsy tongue as he felt his cheeks fizzle in an unfamiliar burn. Usually, he knew just what to say but his skin still tingled with excitement and made everything else his body still numb.

Thankfully, his boat butted into a stop.

He rose and laid his long ore against the adjacent wall, he turned his hands out towards her and supported her out of the boat. She knew he wouldn't not go any further than this, and felt a sort of déjà vu when she had the sort of feeling that if she went down the hall, she would pass through a mirror and be back in her room.

She turned to Erik and considered embracing him again, but though against it when she saw the almost undetectable rose of his cheek. She merely took his hand in hers and held it for a moment. She smiled gratefully at him and then hurried down the hallway feeling much more replenished then ever before.

As Erik watched her disappear into the darkness, he was getting back into his boat when he saw not one, not two, but many discreet amphibians make a home into the chambers of his waters. A brilliant revenge crept into his mind and a rare smirk enticed his lips as his eyes twinkled with a fiery mischievousness.

He took off his long cloak and rolled up his sleeves as he hobbled into the water.

_Revenge: thy name is Phantom.

* * *

_

As soon as she returned to her dorm she quickly stripped off her costume and bosom and left them strewn on her bed before changing into a pale-periwinkle gown. Christine wiped away the spoiled eyeshade but her clean eyes still bore puffy sags that recently had been beginning to blossom under her eyes. A mix of insomnia and depression were the culprits to blame and she sighed to herself as she discarded a dirty handkerchief in a drawer.

A knock interrupted her thoughts.

"Come in."

Meg came in slowly with her eyes to the ground; her thin pink lips made a crooked frown and her golden hair seemed to have lost its radiant glow. Her figure seemed disproportioned until she realized that her shoulders were actually hunched over, her slender neck became thick and fat with the newly residential meat that packed from her back.

She had never seen Meg in such a horrible condition; even her rosy cheeks sagged in pale-yellow depression.

Christine couldn't help but hug her before anything else could have been said.

"Sit down." Christine politely said as she gestured a hand to her bed.

Meg nodded without looking at her and sat. Christine took hold of the stool in front of her dresser and sat in front of her friend.

"Meg…" She began as she took hold of her hands. "I am so sorry for what I did to you mother, I didn't mean to! I swear, I—"

Meg slipped a hand coldly away from her soft grasp and waved it in front of Christine's face, cutting her off.

Christine bit her bottom lip in frustration and desperation: she would kill if that slightly annoying, bubbly friend of hers would resurface just once more. She yearned for a smile that seemed at the moment toxic to her lips.

She was always so big on eye contact, but not even when speaking would her hazel eyes rise.

"I know it's not your fault, Christine…" She said blankly and coldly, no emotion. Not like Meg at all. "…even an invalid would know that toads just don't hop into people's costumes at every given performance. But my mother in now unemployed, and there's nothing we can do to alter that."

"So why came you here to my dorm?"

"Well, now that my mother's away, Monsieur DeLadrith has reassigned the position to Carlotta and her fiancé Arthur."

"He must be wealthy to have purchased us."

"Oh he is…" She agreed bitterly, a nostril began to hook as she said the words. "…he not only owns us now but he also is the commissioner for the police of Paris. Unbelievable."

She fell back against her bed and sighed a deep sigh as her eyes now became fixated on Christine's white ceiling.

"We met him this morning, me and the rest of the chorus cast. Admittedly, he's rather tall and handsome, probably no more than six years older than Carlotta and an inventor. However, with Carlotta now instructing us on how routines, I doubt we'll have any time to get better acquainted. You were absent, I noticed, and I just wanted to see if you all right. "

"How's your mother?" Christine asked with timid hesitation.

Meg sighed and sprawled her arms over the bed trying to find the right words to say. Her fingers inched for something, anything to grab and distract her for not if a minute.

"She's unemployed at the moment, but she is determined not to let this minor set-back tether her down. She is considering returning to work back at this sewing factory she worked at, years prior to her latest career. It's something to put bread on the table." She smiled sadly to herself as her fingers began to dwindle with some clothing. It was hard for her to swallow that she had never really gotten through a day without seeing her. Her mother was her teacher, unlike the other chorus girls; she could see her parent everyday instead of the holidays and special occasions. The more she thought, the faster her fingers began to fiddle.

Her finger kept fiddling until she felt a sudden gap and the surprise took her mind off her mother when she held what appeared to be a bosom before her face.

"Christine, is this yours?"

Christine looked at her friend first then the bosom that she held.

She raised an eyebrow, not being able to connect Meg's surprised look to the dangling clothing.

"Yes, why?"

Meg then took both hands on either end of the bosom and stretched it open to reveal a large sash in the middle of the back part. She poked her fingers through the hole.

"Christine, why would you rip your clothes so carelessly like that? You usually take better care of your things."

Now both eyebrows of Christine's rose as she faced the sash and fingered the hole.

"Meg, these edges are too clean to be a purposeful or accidental rip. They look more like…scissor-work."

"But the only place there are scissors are in the instructor's office." Meg replied curiously.

"That's where I got my bosom for our performance, because I was late to get one when they were being handed-out to everyone else."

"I remember that, perhaps you accidentally tore it when you were in a hurry to put it on?"

"But I didn't even put it on myself, Carlotta…" Christine then slowed down in her explanation and then a radical evaluation began to unravel in her mind. "…Carlotta was putting it on for me while Piangi was singing his part…"

It was then while fingering her index finger through the hole did the tip of her finger sink in a disgusting and puffy texture around the edges. She brought her finger to her face and realized the residue squeezed out of the bosom like tomato juice. Even from the distance, she recognized the smell of the slime, as it had polluted her hair from the night before.

"Toad."

"What?"

"This is toad slime! On my bosom, on my hair from last night! Think about it, Meg, Carlotta was the one who out on my bosom last night and I fell during the performance because a toad slipped through a bosom that had hole that was just big enough for it to slip through. The scissors were in the office and Carlotta was the only one there!"

Now Meg's eyes widened in realization.

"_Christine, do you think…?_"

"Meg! I think I know why your mother's unemployed!"

"Oh my god, I have to go tell my mother."

Meg dashed out of the dorm instantly and Christine then collected her bosom and headed out her door and jogged around for someone, anybody who could help her set things right.


	8. The Man Who Was Waiting

**Author's Notice:** Thank you all who had reviwed, once again. I know this chapter may seem a bit short but another is quickly on its way, but here is actually a very important chapter and introduction to a character who you will be reading more of from now and on. Thoughts and reviews are always welcomed. Enjoy.

**

* * *

**_Chapter Eight: The Man Who Was Waiting

* * *

_

As Christine hurried down the main hall of the dormitories she made a sharp corner and realized that she needed to find Carlotta to break her of the truth. Blind fury and a bleeding mind propelled the now sprinting chorus girl down the titanic hall until she saw the redwood-polished door of the instructor's office. Without even taking a pace to lift the handle, she busted through the door and jabbed a finger immediately at the first figure that she saw.

"_Carlotta!_ We have business to—" She stopped to collect desperate breath until she realized she had a finger practically on the bridge of the nose of not Carlotta, but on a slightly startled, towering man.

"…You're not Carlotta." She said in a mixture and disappointment and embarrassment.

The man who looked to be no older than perhaps mid twenties had honey-almond hair that was styled into a voluminous comb on one side of his hair. He had a muscular, manly jaw line that traced the outline of clean-shaved five o' clock shadow. He had penetrating and probing icy blue eyes that pierced into her unaware soft brown. If her mind weren't already so frazzled with frustrations and realization, she would've blushed at how handsome he was.

The man laughed warmly at her and placed a hand on her flinching shoulder. "She will be out to a initiation meeting for a few days I'm afraid with Monsieur DeLadrith. Perhaps if I put on a wig and a bosom, would I then be of some assistance to you?"

Oh God, he has nice teeth.

Christine hesitated a moment not sure exactly how to react to this strange man and his even stranger humor. Something, however, having to do with the charm of his eyes tickled her nervousness and she let out a shaky laugh.

"I am not sure." She responded, smiling back at him.

"Then may I be of some assistance to you nevertheless?" He asked with another one of his tempting smiles

Looking at his eyes and white smile, she then forgot why she came in the office at the first place.

"I don't think so." She said politely, still giggling as she began to turn away.

"Then will _you_ help me with something, please?" He called after her.

She turned around with a readily cocked eyebrow and a questioning smile. What did he want from her? "Umm, I suppose."

"What charming name would suit such a charming damsel as yourself?"

She turned her head slightly hoping that the fall of her curly hair would cover up her blush.

"Christine, Monsieur."

"Charming mademoiselle, please…" He said with a shake of his head, a modest smile playing his comically crooked lips. He took her small hand in his large own and nestled it tenderly between the cuff of his hand and his thumb. "…Call me Arthur."

He kissed her hand differently from the way Erik did. His kiss was playful, heated, and energetic like a mischievous child.

"And brilliant name by the way…"Whispered he in a playfully huskier tonelooking into her eyes again, a little flame of fire licking those icy oceans. "…suits you perfectly."

She blushed again and decided now it was the time to flee before her giddy laugh would drive him away first.

"Nice to meet you, mons—Arthur." She smiled.

"Likewise."

She could've sworn he winked at her just as she was turning away. Amidst the confusion of bubbly giggles, burning cheeks and skipping heartbeats, she completely forgot why she came there in the first place as she practically frolicked back into her suddenly glamorous dorm.

Charming mademoiselle, huh? She liked him already.

* * *

As she closed her door behind her, she felt so wonderfully free; her tender skin became succulent with the heat of the water dripping down her slender legs. 

She fluffed the towel around her body until she felt dry enough to look for a slip.

She felt confident enough to look at herself in the mirror, but only saw the skull of a said object facing back at her. Her tantrum and night of misfortune came pounding back into her head.

She thought about Carlotta, how it was because of she that Christine had been publicly humiliated and forced Madame Giry back into a sewing chair.

She then let her mind wander in the heat of frustration and then thoughts lead her to Arthur.

Remembering that heartily laugh, that melting smile, those eyes that seemed to twinkle in mischief, she absentmindedly dropped her towel. Her hands began to wander and judge every part of her skin, from her hand-full sized breasts to her narrow waist down to her rounding hips.

She then turned to the full-length mirror behind her and gazed at her nude form, studying and wondering how much a woman did she truly look…

How much of a woman _Arthur_ would think she looked.

Such strange feelings, such strange thoughts, such a strange man began to swirl around in her mind. Her unaccustomed mind quickly ran in this new field of thoughts and ideas, visual projectors playing secret scenes that were meant for her alone to have seen.

She shivered a fantastic shiver of brief excitement.

She blushed at her nakedness and quickly pulled on a slip followed by her nightdress. As she blew away the final light in her room, a pair of icy blue eyes waited for her in the darkness of her dreams.


	9. In an Hour's Time

**Author's Notice: **Yes, yes, I have procrastinated a bit and hope you would all forgive me, I especially like to thank all my reviewers and readers thus far and enjoy my little tale of the affairs of the heart for this growing young lady of fourteen. Things seem nice and mellow now but I stand by with my rating, things will ascend higher into the T fiction, just a friendly warning/reminder for you, my readers. Okay, I have wasted enough hot air. :)

* * *

_Chapter Nine: In an Hour's Time

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_

She hurried into the backstage and met with the rest of the chorus girls, she was caught in a mixture of confusion and apprehension.

It was the morning after she met Arthur, and he told her that Carlotta would be away for a few days with that two-legged pig. Perhaps he gave her misleading information? Whichever the case, she could at least breathe comfortably knowing that she was on time to her routines and tried to make herself seem as invisible as she could manage.

She need not put so much effort albeit.

The girls themselves could've taken well enough care of her camouflage; the entire chorus was divided into several mini herds. No matter how close Christine would try to shuffle into one of them, they always had their backs turned to her, as though she weren't even good enough to be acknowledged by face. She tried time after time again to try and have them warm up to her, but they usually just stiffly return her kindness and then once more dismiss her from the happy chatter that usually revolved around boys and sex.

She always was careful to make sure she always had a smile on at the least, to show everyone else how perfectly acceptable she felt to being completely isolated. What was it about her? Was it her untamable curly hair? Her thin figure? Her milk-white skin? Almost ever since the beginning of her chorus girl career she had always pondered and speculated what, exactly made her so socially repulsive.

Meg was her only outlet on social happiness, but even then, it still wasn't enough when Meg was invited into those happy, blissfully ignorant little parties of girlish sisterhood.

Christine resumed her place in the corner of the backstage with a sigh and watched idly the smiles, the laughs and the exchange of embraces amongst her fellow chorus girls as Meg stepped into the crowd. She had half of a mind to go up to her and satiate her thirst for company and was moving a leg forward to do so but then cut her step short when she saw Meg immediately absorbed into a coterie of balking girls. They brayed and snorted like mules at a joke Evie, the tallest of that group had said. While trying to entertain herself and catching only scraps of each of the diverse groups' conversations, she only knew that the joke had something about women who "dropped their knees". Christine blushed a bit at the phrase and turned her gaze away from that certain gather, it also fascinated her how freely and openly these girls not much older than she talked so easily of women who gave oral sex to men.

Part of her was grateful she was not accepted and could've been mistaken to be one of these pompous streetwalkers. She remembered hearing rumors about certain members of the chorus girls sneaking over to the other side of the opera house and spending nights with their male counterparts.

Christine forced back a roll of her eyes, such typical teenagers, they were. They were ruled by nothing more than their primal instincts and relying on pure hormonal influence to guide them through their lustful adventures.

Suddenly the once talkative assembly of chorus girls became silent and obedient and assorted themselves in their rightful places, assuming that rehearsal was coming to a start, she followed suit and took her step in her assigned position.

Half-expecting to see Carlotta or perhaps even Madame Giry, Christine merely had her hands folded neatly behind her back as she patiently waited for their instructor to initiate their beginning cue. The familiar voice she heard, however,took her by a heart-stopping surprise and she felt her hands automatically strangle each other's wrist.

"Morning ladies." He said as he stepped to the front of the stage gracefully his hands behind his back wearing simple black suspenders with a long ivory collar undershirt. "My apologies that my darling fiancé will be away for a few days, so I will be your substitute for the time being."

His tone was even and friendly, businesslike even, but the charm couldn't have been masked.

He continued speaking as he waltzed around. "You may address me as Monsieur Danteillo, and it will be a pleasure to get to know and recognize myself better with each and every one of you mature young ladies before me…" At this point he stopped at the line that Christine stood in and recognition shined in his eyes immediately. "…That is, if we haven't already."

His eyes still remained general and nonspecific, but only for as long as an eye-blink his eyes grinned to her before returning to their landscape view.

"Now that we've made ourselves acquainted, let's begin shall we?" He said with a melting grin, his white teeth all the more radiant in the early morning shine.

Christine's eyebrows hunched in confusion, it was only a few days after the last opera disaster and the chorus was still in need to learn the moves and cues for their next opera of which they didn't even know the name of.

Then in astonishment she saw Arthur take his leg up and held it straight up in the air, perfect agility and balance posturing him.

"Repeat." He simply stated.

They continued the process for the remaining of the rehearsal session, doing what he did and being resulted by either his uplifting praise or gentle criticism. Either way, his teaching method was that that had made any session with the Madame or Carlotta seem like military practice.

It was like a refreshing drink of water.

During the brief transitions from one teaching to another, Christine marveled at Arthur's flexibility and undulant grace, it was as if he was like a beautiful siren from one of Joseph Bouquet's twisted fairy tales.

She could watch his enticement all day.

As he wiped at his glossy forehead, Arthur dismissed the chorus girls back to enjoy the rest of their day. Seeing the sunlight, it seemed like around early noon was about, as Christine was beginning to follow Meg back to the dorms she felt a large hand grasp her shoulder.

"Miss Christine, its good to see you again." He said in a charming sort of tone that made the tingling sensation in her stomach return once more.

"Bonjour Monsieur Danteillo." She said politely as she made an excuse from looking at him to bow her head slightly. She tried her best to keep her voice steady and the blush from cremating her cheeks.

He lifted a finger to her chin rose her eyes to meet his own icy blue. "We're both adults, love…" Up close, she could see tiny shards of black embed in that icy iris. His voice was slightly lower and tempting. "You can call me Arthur when we're not engaged in our business, remember?"

She shivered under his finger and leaned slightly away from his beckoning hand. She scolded herself mentally for feeling such a way towards him, he was in his mid twenties when she was fourteen, he was going to be married for lord's sake. She was just being a pig and a love struck fool.

"Yes well," She began as she backed away from him, trying to calm her distempered breath. "It was nice seeing you again Arthur and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow."

His eyebrows crumpled in concern. "Something wrong, dear?"

"No, sir."

"Would you like to join me for a cup of coffee? I'd happily pay of course."

She stopped in mid-breath; he was just becoming stranger and stranger and her buckling knees weren't helping much to let her stroll away gracefully.

"Pardon?"

"It gets quite a bit boring without much to do, I'd appreciate some—charming company." He smiled at her, pausing for only a brief, hardly noticeable second searching for the right words.

Her heart clogged up in her throat and she felt her mind being constricted around her ears. She felt an unfamiliar pang in her stomach and wondered why suddenly everything felt like a giant carousel.

"Just someone to talk to when I get a bit lonely, I promise I won't occupy _most_ of your day." He assured her with a discreet wink.

She bit that word hard: _lonely_. She wondered what was his problem; did perhaps Carlotta not give him much attention? Could it be that maybe…?

She felt the once rigid bridge between them smooth out and she swallowed her heart when she smiled at him and nodded slowly and modestly.

"Sure."

She could get lost into that white smile forever, as clean and as milky as the snow itself that nestled outside comfortably in the soft noon light. His eyes slighted in happiness and his crooked lips stretched out in a warm, almost comfortable sort of way as though they had known each other for years.

"Then will I meet you here in an hour's time?"

"Alright."

As she got under a showerhead excitedly and happily scrubbed every part of her energetic body,a happy beat bounced in her feet as she practically skipped back to her dorm. Things were going so wonderfully fast, the high of this sample of the fast life she felt shivered throughout her body in the most fantastic way. She looked through her closet and sorted out looking for her best clothes. Settling on an ivory day gown, she took hold of a velvet blue cloak and arranged her hair in the usual style: curly and voluminous.

She applied only the slightest makeup and sprayed her homemade fragrance of tangerine and rose that she remembered Madame Giry had shown her and Meg to create when they were younger.

She tried to make sure that she looked as simple as she always did and hoped to Gods that Arthur would simply just register her appearance as a simple student consulting with her teacher.

As she fluffed her hair once more and examined herself in her mirror, she frolicked out her dorm completely unaware of the man behind the mirror who had his heart thickened a bit in wondering where she was going that needed her to look so beautiful.

And most of all…_who_ was she going with that made her so happy?


	10. What She Sees, What He Knows

**Author's Notice:** Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone who has read and/or reviewed thus far. I am personally happy that Avatar: The Fury of Aang has aired, nicely done episode--that's beside the point though. On with the story.

* * *

_Chapter Ten: What She Sees, What He Knows_

* * *

"My, my…" He said as she saw him waiting for her there already, his soft brown hair combed back once more to its usual side. His eyes twinkled from the noon shine, he wore black pants and a light green vest over another ivory shirt, gray-dirtied boots bore prominent from the jet black pants and a final coat the shade of his hair draped over him down to his knees.

His icy blue eyes scanned her and down, the ivory dress was plastered so sweetly around her narrow waist but then blossomed freely down to her mid-calf. The V-shaped bosom that held her young breasts, however, bore her gradual transformation of womanhood in progress in the most appealing matter.

He had yet to see such a precise yet so wonderfully molded concoction of innocence and sexiness in one beautiful sculpture.

How wonderful in pastel colors she did look.

"Ravishing." He simply stated as that familiar twinkle of mischief boiled in his eyes. She found it rather ironic how those eyes, as cold as the arctic itself could bleed in such fiery intensity; she saw his eyes like a sweet fire that she heard in stories…the kind that if you put your hand in, it could never burn you.

What a sweet flame.

"Bonjour." She said with a simple bow of her head, her cheeks perspiring once more in modesty.

In the absence of her risen eyes, he cocked his eyebrow flirtatiously, his crooked lips pouting in a boyish smirk.

As she brought her head up again he extended his hand out to her.

"Shall we?"

* * *

The restaurant was simple and comfortable, whites and blues painted its every wall. The on their smooth faces.

He escorted her to an isolated table despite the already remotely quiet restaurant, there were only two chairs for two and he pulled out hers first before he seated himself.

It took no longer than settlement of his seat before a waiter waltzed up to them, a pudgy man who looked in his mid-ages with a large face yet a narrow, pointy nose that stood out above a thick black mustache.

"Your menus." He said through his slit-like nostrils as he took a step away. "I will return momentarily for your orders."

She truly never was a big eater, and always had more of a dry mouth than an empty stomach anyways so a hot cup of coffee and a small garden salad delighted her. She put down her menu shortly after and sat tightly with her fingers laced under the drape of the dark blue tablecloth. She made sure her eyes gazed at anything other than the handsome man that sat before her.

After Arthur made his decision and sat his menu down on the table, his gaze became fixated with her face, noticing her anxious eyes that seemed desperate not to match his own, he smirked teasingly as he tilted his head to the side.

"I promise it won't cause a bleeding of your eyes if you rose them up." He said finally, his chin resting on his hand as he stared at her with a teasing smile on his face.

Her eyes immediately snapped to his face, upon seeing his knowledgeablefeatures and his playful smirk she couldn't help but manage a half-smile herself.

"Has anyone ever told you what a lovely shade of red you blossom into?" He asked in the same sly, provoking voice that bounced with humor and friendly jeer.

Her smile widened innocently and he adored the way her plump cheeks bulged in her contentment, dimples probing sweetly in her child-like smile.

The waiter returned and took their orders and menus and told them nonchalantly that their orders would be met soon as he laid down elegant glasses of cool water departing away from with a flick of his thin heel.

Christine felt awkward once more as she immediately took sips of her drink, sensing that if her mouth was busy that she wouldn't have to speak with Arthur. God, what a moron was she, to have gone out with her teacher when she knew very well that she'd act like this.

"So how long have you been dancing in the opera house?" He asked smoothly and gently.

She swallowed carefully and laid her glass down. "Seven years, eight when I turn fifteen."

His eyes lightened just a bit. "Ah, and when will that be?"

"Soon, this coming month."

"And you turn fifteen, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

He chuckled a bit and relaxed into his chair. "Lovely dame like yourself so pretty already at such a young age, I envy the man who has the great fortune to have you when you get older."

She blushed furiously and this time could not hold back the grin that bled through her tight mouth.

He smiled over his glass of water as he took a sip still watching her.

"That's what I like to see…" He smiled as he out the glass down again. "…You have no idea how much more prettier you appear than you already do. I'd like to congratulate your parents for such a lovely outcome as yourself."

At the mentioning of parents, her lips hunched and the blush of her cheeks faltered ever so slightly. She quickly picked up her glass again and brought the brim to her lips, hoping that she acted quickly enough to not stir this man's penetrating gaze.

He knew he hit a tender spot, and immediately his eyebrows crumpled.

"Oh, did I say something wrong?" His voice sounding much more sympathetic and realizing.

She merely shook her head stiffly, her lips still desperate for an excuse kept channeling in the thinning water as her eyes were frozen to the blue tablecloth.

She could feel his eyes probe at her, tugging at her confession.

"I'm sorry…" He apologized sincerely after a few awkward moments of silently pleading with her. "…I didn't mean to upset you."

She looked up at him finally and almost instantly regretted it; those icy daggers puncturing her victim brown earth and nearly cocked an eyebrow when she saw for the first time that crooked line of his lips slant in a thoughtful frown.

"…I-It's okay." She said finally, trying to disguise her pathetic croak with dignity and calmness, she absolutely detested it when she was made to look like a spineless worm.

He stared at her with another one of those soul-penetrating gazes until she was almost paralyzed with shock when she suddenly felt a hand atop of hers.

The gesture finally forced her view back into his own for a moment that agonizingly resembled an eternity.

"Christine, I want you to know right now that I am your teacher and you can trust me if _anything_ at all bothers you." Another first for him thatday was a seriousness that completely masked his usually playful demeanor. Strangely, she found it very attractive.

She simply nodded in a reluctant nervousness and cursed mentally when she looked at her now empty glass of excuses and distraction.

It was then did his fingers cupped underneath hers and held a firm, almost possessive grasp.

"Christine…" He whispered in an entirely new voice, and she shivered in amusement.

"Your plates, monsieur." The sudden nasal voice of the waiter thankfully erupted. She discreetly exhaled a breath of relief, as attracted as she was to the handsome man, there was something about him that always pushed her to the brink of discomfort.

He laid down the plates in such an experienced and graceful manner, her thoughts constricted thoughtfully when she pondered how could he be so cordially advanced when he held dishes only at the tables of his fingers.

Arthur noticed her distracted eyes and smiled absentmindedly when the waiter restated his order as he laid it down gently.

"…And for his lady, a garden salad and coffee." He announced formally as her plate nestled into the cloth with a soft clatter.

She blushed at his words of being "Arthur's lady" and didn't cross her thoughts to look at him smiling even more broadly at her.

"Umm, monsieur?" She protested innocently. " I am not—"

The clinging of the empty water glasses interrupted her as they were scooped into his swift arms.

"Bon appetite." He bowed in a gentleman-like courtesy and just as sharply as he did before, wheeled on his heel and waltzed away from the once more awkward table.

She immediately stabbed at a random leaf of lettuce and began to nibble at it desperately.

She couldn't see the smirk of knowing grace his lips.

"Are you just going to keep avoiding me all through this luncheon?" His voice cackled in his relieving teasing tone.

She muffled a giggle while another leaf crunched between her teeth, swallowing immediately.

She met his eyes for a moment; suddenly a bit of humor gnawing at her comically untamed posture. "Are you just going to keep pestering me until I speak with you?" She retorted mockingly.

"If I must, mademoiselle." He winked at her just as he was sipping his coffee; he admired her playful attitude when it would finally make a guest appearance.

She chuckled sweetly to more herself than he. "You always resort to childish persuasion to get what you want, Monsieur Danteillo?" She teased back.

The way he kept smiling, not even blinking at her made her shiver in another fit of nervousness when he responded calmly. "If I did, I wouldn't be the way I am."

His words startled her, and suddenly once more, her smile flashed away.

Her eyebrows stressed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

His sighed patiently, his smile mutating from one of tease and play to one of solemn remorse.

"If I could get what I wanted, I'd still have a family."

Her large eyes peaked in sympathy. "Monsieur?"

He chuckled sadly, taking the time to sip at his own coffee, his eyes for once, not concentrated on her.

She reached over and tugged at the sleeve of his free hand like a lost child. "Arthur?"

His eyes bore submission and withdrawal and he sighed a hot exhale from the warm liquid.

"As far as I'm concerned, I have no family." He said calmly and indifferently.

"How so?" She replied hesitantly, hoping she wasn't pressing his will to tell more.

He shrugged nonchalantly with his eyes now escaping hers. "My mother was suicidal, you know, she favored the poison you see."

Her white corneas shined. "…No…"

He stared at her for once without those flirtatious flickers in his eyes, his shoulders leveling maturely in a sort of defeated manner.

He smirked thoughtfully, memories restraining his playful tone, icy blue eyes contrasting to the dark velvet blue of the tablecloth. "My father was a bit abusive…" He chuckled with discreet disdain. "…putting it lightly of course. Drove my mother to the brink of sanity until she had enough of his slamming of her into walls or a good smack in the head o' face. She tried some tactics until she settled on a fateful dose of rat poison in her tea."

For once, those concentrative, focused, driven eyes fueled by the ambitious intensity of his inner fire left him as his eyes thickened into hard icebergs.

As his irises began to still in their freezing coldness, his body also began to follow suit and stiffen its posture from its once childish appraise.

"She died coughing up blood on the bathroom floor one day in winter." He concluded with his body language dawned in defeat. "I was only about fourteen or fifteen around then."

She felt her throat constrict and her voice become strained. "A-And your father?"

He snorted nasally and turned his nose away, a nostril hooking in detest of the subject.

"The randy old bastard ran away the day after my mother's bodily discovery." He recalled himself and a stubborn smirk stubbed his features, determined not to give too much of this new personality. He finally looked at back at her, the rock-hard icebergs of his eyes melding back into a sweet spring, hot in warmth and recollection.

"I hated that man." He continued with acynical smile. "Father favored a tough branch rather than a belt, he'd rather use those for mother and I suppose in the long run she was the lucky one."

Her upper features ached from the arching of her concerned eyebrows and her grasp around his hand squeezed a little more, he felt her pour all her affection and compassion as it sizzled into his tough skin.

"Arthur…" She whispered throatily. "…I'm sorry."

He smiled gratefully at her, his eyes softening with a bit more comfort.

He squeezed her hand back. "Thank you for listening, I now know I can trust you."

She smiled shyly at him for a moment, lowering her eyes to the side, considering the circumstances.

_He was on orphan too._

She compared the details: his family, her family, and their relevance.

His words helped her to look up at him again distantly, transforming the smiling handsome young man into what she truly saw: a clown, a happy little clown smiling and laughing through the sadness and loneliness. She could visualize him with the distracting paint, laughing and playing in his bouncy attire, even during his cries he'll still keep laughing. He'll laugh to save face, to save pain, for a hope…

…for a father.

She bit her lip as she took hold of his hand with now both of hers, loneliness and pent-up agony beginning to frizzle out of her heart.

He looked up at her with curiosity and indifference, his appearance seeming numb with the pounding of his memories.

She inhaled carefully.

"Arthur…" She began, still wondering whether this was a good idea or not. "…I had a father too, once…"


	11. If She Didn't Know Any Better

**Author's Notice:** Once more, thank you all who read and/or reviewed. A pleasure to read reviews as well as write my chpaters as always.

**Jezebel21: **I am glad you like the story so far, as well as any other story you will read, the plots and subliminal messages inside them are to be discovered and verified as you read on, my dear. Just keep reading. Yes, it was Erik who laced her corset (that was verified by the "gloved hands"). Will Christine really go crazy? I guess that's why you'll have to keep reading, love. ;) And yes, this _IS_ an E/C fic, I promise you, all of you that. And no, my apologies but the beloved Raoul DeChangy will not be part of my story, forgive me. And yes, Arthur Danteillo is my original character and indeed no one else's replacement, he is his own character with his own means. I hope this clears things up for you, my dear, and I apologize if I had been unclear with my writing or descriptions, and as for not "grasping the point" of my story just remember that I am not a fool...all these crazy events and seemingly-insignificant details will make sense soon enough. Just keep reviewing and asking questions because goddammit, I like it:)

**Jelinda.The.Good: **Thank you so very much for your pleasant praise, it always brings a smile to my face when I see your particular review. "Bloody BRILLIANT phanphic", huh? I like you already. :D Anyways, yes, I had intentions on basing a bit of this phic off of Leroux's version but blended it a bit with Gerard Butler's appearance, since I liked it better than Lon Chaney's more-accurate appearance. But I am trying to stop the ALW references there, since in my opinion, as pleasant ashis version of "Phantom of the Opera" was, I actually liked the Leroux version better. Cookies, huh? I hope they're oatmeal-raisin. Mmm!

* * *

_Chapter Eleven: If She Didn't Know Any Better_ _

* * *

_

What she thought would be an hour-most luncheon turned out to be a three-hour therapy session. He'd listen to her, she listened to him with both parties then evaluating and interpreting what could've been and why things turned out the way they did now.

Whenever she spoke, he would stare intently into her brown eyes, the once icy demeanor of his eyes enveloping her into the now steamy diffusion of his dawning, his words steaming with warmth etched in each dialect.

After they were finally satiated in their hunger for both nourishment and companionship, Arthur gracefully paid the waiter with a handsome tip, and as fluidly as before, he escorted Christine from her seat and led out the doorway.

* * *

When the pair returned to the opera house, it was already sunset though the hour was still surely young. Snow masked the mysterious ground and flakes fluttered carelessly in the nonchalant current. She was grateful forthe cloakthat draped on her dress, thinking that they would part ways at the entrance of the populaire, she gracefully halted at the majestic art-boasting doors. Arthur, however, giving her another tempting smile just took her hand and escorted her through the doors. 

The halls and lobbies were remotely inactive, as many of the chorus girls and other singers had made themselves comfortable in their dorms or fled off to restaurants in search of hot chocolate or delight.

Christine, too distracted by the quiet halls failed to notice Arthur's quiet smirk at the sight. She turned to look at him as he leaned down towards her; his hay-soft bangs brushing against her forehead.

"Tell me which way your dorm is." He whispered into her now pink ear, his warm breath paralyzing the hairs on the back of her neck. His voice was low and ever changing, going from one depth of tone to another. Inexperience could only interpret the voice like how an angered cat sounded, but that's all her mentality had to offer. What a strange sound.

Somehow, however, her cheeks instinctively flushed and something deep within her stomach gave an exciting pull, somewhat like the night she stared at herself naked in her mirror.

Amateur mentality and innocent evaluations, however, gestured her head in a nod and she led the man down the halls through the chorus girl dormitories.

_Strange_, she thought, _I thought men weren't allowed in these dormitories. I suppose Carlotta made some rash changes before she left._

She finally stopped at the door at the end of a quiet corridor; inactivity and isolation reeked through these last few walls of the hall. Her drive for company only hungered more his desire to satiate her, give her the guidance and break her into his blissful care.

"This is the dorm." She said shyly, covering herself with more of her cloak and felt even more grateful of its presence.

He looked at her with a gaze she never recognized before, her mind strained to try and pick up where she may have seen a similar stare before—the closest she could manage was the way Erik had looked at her when she first embraced him.

Arthur, however, his sight was more…she didn't know…blunt, hungrier, perhaps even a bit beseeching.

"Thank you so much for accompanying me to lunch." He chuckled flirtatiously. "Even though it ran until sundown…" He paused, taking the time to gaze at her long, luscious neck. "You truly make me feel so much better."

As much as his words pleased her, she couldn't bring herself to hug him with the same gratitude as she did for Erik. Arthur was just so…so…

_Strange._

She nodded stiffly and a small but genuine smile dissolved into her plump lips. "Thank you, Arthur, for listening. Today was all I needed." She said sweetly, meaning it in every sense of the word, she did need a friend, but just this day would _be_ enough for him. She didn't know if she could go through another one of these days with that nerve-wrenching stare of his.

She leveled her hand in a business-like manner, as though what they just went through together was a formal brunch.

He looked at her hand for a moment, then his gaze ascended to her politely serious face, he smirked a bit in knowing before taking her hand in his grasp and pulled her into him, his towering body roofing over hers.

With her face nuzzled into his soft leather coat, he could not have seen her eyes stretch wide, the strange discomfort of his arms around in a secure, almost possessive way. The feel of his body pressed against hers was chilled by the odd sense of reluctance that bordered energetically between them.

Paralyzed by shock and unease, she just stood there, her arms stiff at her sides, rising on her tiptoes to just get her chin over his strong shoulder for air.

After what seemed forever of him embracing her, he let go with a knowing but polite smile on his face, his eyes almost pale-blue in the moonlight that leaked through the large windows at the base of the ceiling.

She mustered a smile back as her hands hurriedly fiddled with the lock of her dorm behind her stiff back. When the click of admittance vibrated in her fingers, she opened the door behind herself and while still facing him nervously, ushered herself inside.

Only when the door closed completely did she press her back against the door, breath skipping through her throat and lungs, reason and logic starting to reenter her oncenumb thoughts.

The sudden thrash of reality and reason began to overwhelm her as she collapsed on her bed unable to stir the energy to remove any of her clothing, facing the ceiling.

The midnight-blue of night painted her walls in the most comfortable texture, she always felt so much more at ease in the night than any other time of the day as she breathed in cool fresh air that drained from the outside through her window.

She closed her eyes in night's cool comfort, feeling the soothing of nocturnal chill, a relief from all that heat Arthur gave off.

"O sweet night…" She whispered in unaware bliss. "Lend me your veil of nocturnal pleasure."

"As you wish."

She gasped and bolted upright instantly, her curls bouncing in her unsuspecting rhythm.

"_Erik!_" She breathed in a more-relieved exhale, a smile gracing her lips.

Erik silently returned her with a small smile, but his eyes bore seriousness and…disappointment?

"Erik? Something bothers you?"

He stared at her coolly still looking down at her splayed form, saying nothing as he lent a hand down to her.

"Come with me."

Her eyes still provoked curiosity and wonder, but she obeyed her master and grasped the hand that in turn grasped hers back.

As played so many times in a forgotten projector in her mind, she went down with him through the dreamy opening of her two-way mirror and into the labyrinth of this, her Erik.

* * *

He rowed her to his lair in icy silence as she hunched her shoulders over in unknown shame, what had she done? She dare not speak out first to her master, and apprehended the prolonging silence and secretly breathed in relief when the boat made its friction-slapped halt at the slope of his private kingdom. 

The sight of it all always stole her breath, and the many candles that were lit around her always gave her angel and her soul a luminescent uplift.

She waited in her seat after the boat had ceased its drifting and waited for him to escort her out with another one of his enticing gazes. When he simply hopped out of the boat into the shallow water and led her out of her seat with merely an idle stare, she was disappointedly surprised.

How she wanted his eyes to envelop her into their passionate mystery so.

It was only until he gently span her around to face him and a heavy look from his serious eyes did he finally speak.

"Who is your master?" He asked coolly.

She held back an arch of her eyebrow and answered him with curiosity.

"You, sir."

"You are my loyal student?" He questioned, now beginning to pace in a circle around her.

"Yes, sir." She could feel his gaze weigh heavily on her every word.

"You wouldn't betray my trust, would you?"

"No, sir."

"Who has taken care of you after all these years?"

"You, sir."

He then finally stopped in front of her in his pause; his eyes locked squarely onto hers, his far stronger hold on his eyes dominated her fire.

"You belong to me, don't you?"

She met his gaze in a faint glisten of fear.

"I do."

He held his stare for an agonizing while, probing her, forcing her, provoking her of any deception.

She had none.

He continued to circle around her until he disappeared out of her peripheral vision.

His hands then snaked their ways around her slim and curved waist from behind, his strong fingers kneading the fresh meat of her chest upwards in a quaint…massage, was it?

Her eyes fluttered in enticement and pleasure, her stomach beginning once more to stretch in excitement.

He kept caressing up to the knot at her neck which held her cloak, with a sly pull of a loose string, the cloak fell from her shoulders until it dissipated onto the floor around her tiny feet.

Her skin crawled in need, begging, pleading for more of his advanced touch.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back slightly into the strong crook of his neck, just when a moan was about to escape from her lips, the departure was then replaced by a short gasp of unexpected pain.

His hands constricted around the thighs of her arms as he held an iron grip, her eyes grew intensely away from his sight, breath trapped in her gut.

"Erik! What are you—?"

"Look in front of you."

She struggled in vain for a few moments until she finally complied and stared out before her and was puzzled when she saw her brown eyes stare right back at her.

Furrowed eyebrows reflecting furrowed eyebrows.

Christine reflecting Christine.

A student and her teacher reflecting a student and her teacher.

"Fate reflecting fate." Erik whispered into her ear coolly, as though he had been following her train of thought. She shivered at the thought, still staring quizzically at herself.

"Know this, my sweet…" Erik continued on, his grip finally lessening in constriction, but still maintaining a hold. "…This world is one of intolerance, impatience, and uncompassionate parasites, they offer little to no honor of themselves—much less anyone around them…"

At this point his hands slid down to the shins of her arms. She grimaced discreetly at her symmetric vision, cringing slightly as Erik's hands roamed over the many cuts and bruises or her unfortunate accidents from the day she ran away from Carlotta to the last opera disaster.

_And every day around and in between_, she thought bitterly.

Her muscles relaxed a bit when Erik's hands caressed up her smooth neck, nuzzling the ends of her delicate jaw. She tried to make sure she didn't look so intoxicated when he touched her in front of the mirror, hoping to at least keep face in front of Erik if not anyone else.

He signaled out a gentle finger as it brushed over the burgundy scratch—now a scar, still etched on her face.

She shivered in disgust.

Erik chuckled mentally to himself, he felt a bit more relieved that in the _smallest_ sense, that she and he were linked by yet another source. He chuckled a second time when he thought about her being able to accept his…scar.

What an insufficient term.

As he fingered her scar, he continued on. "…know and always remember that you can never trust anyone."

She flinched when his other hand swept over a still-sensitive bruise on her arm, a painful reminder of The Great Opera Incident due to Carlotta's deception.

She nodded her head obediently and knowingly.

"Not anyone." He repeated, tightening his grip slightly.

She turned her head around to look at him from the corner of her eye.

"How about you?"

She saw him react a bit in discreet surprise, many expressions manipulating his surprisingly versatile face, but then responded only with a soft, protective smile.

And for the first time that night to her relief, Erik had finally softened.

Haply he finally got that retched man's enticements out of her misled system.


	12. For What Freedom Is

**Author's Notice:** Ello, ello, ello all readers and/or reviewers! It's good to be back, my apologies for being away for a bit, but I was off celebrating the dawning of my fifteenth birthday party. No, my age has nothing to do with the story, it is merely another fic of differnt time zones for the Phantom and his young love. Anyways, a little warning ahead of you all, this chapter is entirely of...I hate this word..._fluff. _Argh, such a sugarcoated word, completely an unestimate of this chapter, but my vocabulary has been running dry on me, ah well. This chapter contains a bit of adult-themed situations but nothing entirely explicit, I respect the rules of but yes anyways, this is a chapter of having nothing to do really with the growing plot of my story.It is, however,actually a goldmind if you are one of those readers who adore characterization and/or depth of story chapters. Lots of emotion and thoughts here. The continuation of the chapter os course leads to the next one, but for now just lay back and enjoy part one. Another _Author's Notice_ will be featured at the end of this scene.

* * *

_Chapter Twelve: For What Freedom Is

* * *

_

Christine was glad to resume back into the blissful enchantment of her quaintly charming Erik and his fascinating unknown kingdom.

As he sang to her, all the darkened colors of his lair began to blend into a milky dream, a secret kaleidoscope of beauty and music in their ever changing symmetric deceptions that began to blur her senses from reality and fantasy.

Unlike times before, when he would simply sing to her with his eyes cemented on hers, she was not his sole audience this time around. No, this time she felt a sort of unannounced presence before her as Erik waltzed gracefully his only home, singing his melodic proclamation to her, himself, and the world.

His eyes patiently grazed over his self-made world, he himself did not fully acknowledge his absentminded singing, only felt the slight motion of his voice gurgle inside him, hardly knowing its sweet departure through his wordless, harmonizing obliviousness.

Christine watched him curiously as he seemed his attention being fickle with many various things in his domain: masks, his works, and mannequins, not being able to discept in her drunk mind what, exactly was he doing. She remembered hearing of stories from the raunchy housekeeper Joseph of the early days of sailors on the sea whom were lured to their deaths by the intoxicating sirens that inhabited the deceit ocean waters. Eyes fluttering from inebriation and overwhelming beauty, she drunkenly wondered up to meet her Erik, part of her reality reminding her of all the times she'd ever felt this…strange feeling.

Now she felt could be a time to act on it. She wanted it here, she wanted it to be him and she wanted it to be now.

She strolled up to Erik with care and shy anticipation and before better senses could tell her otherwise, her hands snaked their ways around his thick, muscular neck.

She felt his muscles tighten in surprise and shock out of her eyesight, but then felt his icy protection gradually—oh so gradually—deice underneath her warm, sizzling touch.

She felt a prolonging shiver of excitement scurry up her rigid spine, for once she; the quiet insignificant chorus girl had power over another. The sensation rocked her senses a bit until it all too soon wearied under her fingertips, so much power overwhelmed her and she knew that she was not meant for such demanding positions. She continued to knead the flesh of his thick skin until much to her silent delight; he moaned an inward moan of approval.

Erik, numb with pleasure could only now act on raw instinct and amateur evaluations, struggling his best to decide what was the teacher—the guardian—the _mentor_ thing to do.

Years of loneliness and seemed-eternities could no longer hold back against his weakened and beseeching heart, he prayed to whomever could hear him that he begged forgiveness and told them he knew not what he was doing.

He politely shook away her eager fingers and turned towards her, fearing that she overstepped her boundaries, she retrieved her small and thin hands partially to herself. He stared down at her, studying with his naturally scholar-like eyes, full of observation and ambition. His height easily towered over hers comfortably, and he had known very well what could he take if he desired it so, but such thoughts he had always pushed aside with a firm dismissal; he had far too much respect for her to do such a despicable act. He admired silently through the windows of his eyes such a spectacular work of art that he himself felt envious for not stirring the brilliance to create himself, eyes that sparkled with the dewiest of innocence and longing. For the first time of their music career together he saw no longer the obedient student whom he cared for so long, but a young blossoming nymph of music…

He held back a moan of fascination as he reached out to his nymph, wanting her, needing her, knowing that there could be no one else who could comfort that trembling child of loneliness better than he.

He looked down at her figure, young and ripe, small and perky breasts exaggerated by her sharp-cut bosom, bruises and cuts painting her thin arms, her entire being reeked with isolation and longing.

He touched the hinges of her jaw, feeling the ecstatic frizzle underneath his moving fingertips as they caressed down to her long angel-soft flesh. He felt her shiver underneath his touch, and he now knew that willpower and control were slowly draining out of him in a painful departure.

She took this as a permission to explore his own flesh, her hunger growing more and more blindly for him as her fingers kept grazing on.

During the quiet, yet overwhelming moments of their expression and discovery, she couldn't help but notice her comfort around him, always since the days of her early orphanhood. He was nothing like Arthur; Erik was patient, careful, and thoughtful ashis eyes glistened with what looked like modesty and perhaps even…shyness?

She caught the blush of his cheeks and from the symmetric expression in his eyes; she knew he saw the burn of hers too. She never took the time to analyze the obvious age difference here…she was fourteen dawning on fifteen, and he looked to be about his late thirties.

What happened to the laws of attraction? What about basic tastes on both parties? What happened to being a student and teacher?

Somehow, the rules of reality just _didn't_ apply.

He caressed her youthful beauty with care and precaution, knowing very well the sins of their bond but out of his blinding passion guiltily pushed all morals and sanity out of the way…just for one beautiful moment.

He'd give anything to just spend some time with her.

It was then when his hands grew more curious did she realize where he wondered was near the familiar swan-framed bed that she stirred from mornings ago. Adrenaline and fear both began to perspire through her molecules, she would not let this opportunity pass as she coiled her arms around his strong neck fingering the collar of his cloak gently trying to pry off its barrier.

He looked at her once more with those heavy, beseeching eyes with a stare that she never saw anyone give her before, a sort of angelic spirit evaporated from his very pupils and despite the aura of night upon them, he seemed to uplift her own soul as he glowed as though he were lit from within.

When he slowly helped her remove his cloak, the candlelight licked his now darkening features, a sparkle of heat shining in his dark-green eyes. She now held him and nearly gasped in shock when she felt his strong arms gently tightening around her slim waist, pressing her slightly into him in such a simple, yet meaningful gesture that sent her entire body in a boil.

She decided now she would risk it.

As he pulled her in closer into him, she gladly enveloped in his masculine, musky scent and she buried her petite nose into the nape of his neck. She pouted her lips and then with all courage, brushed them against his skin not failing to feel the follicles of unseen hair prickle her in shock.

That was it.

He swept an arm underneath her weakening knees and scooped her up into his strong and protective embrace. He'd protect her; devote all his energy on her, if she'd _only_ remain his.

She was gently laid on the velvet cushions of his bed and pressed her lips together in pleasure when he crawled on top of her, feeling his pressure only provoke her excitement. The loose white-collared shirt he wore sagged in bagginess, and she could tell by the sample of his exposed, muscular collarbone that he was indeed a prize worth seeing. Her fingers twittered in desire to part the kisses of his locked buttons, but he modestly held her wrists gently but firmly in his grasp and passionately pressed them down on the cushions.

Desire and loneliness sizzled between their touching skin, fusing together and neither could take any of this anymore. Erik gave in to her warmth and for once retired from his habitat of cold and darkness, and she abandoned her world of light and heat to join and meet him their neutral bond of music and passion.

He was so refreshing to her heat.

She was so refreshing to his cold.

Neither light nor shadow existed in their unitary; nothing else at all existed for that matter, the rules and restraints of sanity and realism departing forevermore in their passionate bliss…

It was only he and she.

He kissed the nape of her neck so tenderly and her hands clasped and unclasped under their own fickle determinations of which she could not control. They were completely alone, no one to bother, pester, or provoke any of them, and for once in their lives they were finally free.

His sweet and timely kisses quipped a bit and his lips kept pecking at her flesh hungrily, the sleeve of her dress fell under all of her movements, exposing her bare shoulder. He took the opportunity with honor and grace as he indulged them both by showering all her revealed flesh with his kisses and touches.

Their bodies began to bubble more feverishly for each other, and the more he kissed her, the more she squirmed under his passionate embrace. They avoided each other's lips knowingly, each feeling that such a risk they could not yet feel ready to swallow.

As his lips descended onto her baring shoulder, she felt her skin burn from frustration and need, and when their eyes met for the first time during their passionate encounter; his eyes penetrated hers with such sorrow and insecurity. As she stared back at him, she read the message that stung from his eyes but could only dangle from his lips and with a short and slight nod of her head; he delicately pulled down the sleeve of her dress.

He kissed her throat and collarbone and she kissed him back on his jaw line and rough chin, their palms now embracing one another as their fingers laced together in the heat.

When he kissed more heatedly on the very crook of her neck, she could not restrain any longer and he heard his name breath in ecstasy through her quivering lips.

"Christine…my Christine…. my precious student…" He murmured between more hungry kisses.

"My beloved angel…" She moaned.

It was then she wanted his plump lips on her own rather than inferior flesh, and she squirmed further underneath him so that their eyes met once more, she wanted this man of mystery.

And before better knowledge could pry away her innocent fingers, they pulled away his pestering mask.

Oh, freedom is so sweetly short-lived.

* * *

**Author's Notice: **You see? I am a woman of my word, here is the second part of the AN, and I wanted to tell my readers now that I actually decided hard on this on and decided I didn't want Erik to take his Christine just yet, somehow my own morals just told me, "you know what, just throw in her taking off the mask and kill the moment just because we can't write him...doing her." So I agreed with myself. (Hahaha) But anyways, some of you may be going "Jerk! Why'd you not write him freaking out about her taking off his mask?" I say to those readers: "Well, because the whole "Stranger Than you Dreamt it" scene has been DONE and also I just thought it was just too predictable. Don't worry, confirmation of the disastrous confrontation will be explained in the next chapter. Anyways, questions, comments, and just plain reviews are always welcomed to my story page as always, have a nice day. :) 


	13. Sins of a Monster

**Author's Notice:** Greetings again, everyone. Just my usual thanks for my readers and reviewers and also kudos for anyone who can recognize "The Little Fly Song" verse in this chapter from a movie. Anyways, drama and action is on its way in the next chapters, stay tooned!

* * *

_Chapter Thirteen: Sins of a Monster_

* * *

Erik sat on his organ's chair, faced away from the instrument in question as his firm fingers kneaded the flesh of his temples. The stress on his mind became so pestering that he found himself obsolete to perform any of his usual routines, damn that little…what is she? Child? Ingénue? Student?

_Dammit,_ he cursed to himself, _I can't even perform my music for her voice is all I hear._

All his melodies somehow seemed off-key, everything around him just reeked with suffocation, and somehow an unfamiliar smell had clouded his mind and left only a throbbing headache as a memento. From the moment he cursed at her to the second he rowed her hastily back to her dorm, he felt that somehow all the clean air in his lair had departed along with her.

He felt so…what was the word? Ashamed? Confused? Angry?

_Stressed,_ he thought.

He kept leaning over his seat, relying on the bent elbow on his knee to keep him from collapsing while praying that the hand that fiddled with his temples would help ease the sickness. He tried to process what happened between the hours he brought her down to his lair to the moment he heard the two-way mirror shift into a close, he lectured her, she seduced him, and for the most beautiful moment of his life he had her in his bed.

He shook his head in disgust, this was the innocent child he had vowed protection for since the day he watched from the shadows her father disappear into earth. He looked down upon his large, feeble hands and felt himself churn in fear and insecurity.

God damn it, damn _her_, to hell. He hated feeling insecure, he was a grown man who prided himself at least be the master conductor of the opera-house, knowing all its inhibitors characters and mysterious riddles…

And yet, here he was threatening to burst a vein over trying figure out how to classify this bloody retched little demon who would barley be turning fifteen. What was so goddamn complex, exalting, uplifting—_indescribable_ about this damned little creature of music and innocence? He felt his own intelligence insulted even worse when he could not even comprehend the emotions that perpetually kept on tormenting, puzzling and shocking _him_ beyond human reason. He was her damned teacher! She was his retched student! He, for one, held a great respect and nobility for such a special bond, and yet he the knowing gentleman that he supposedly was only acted like a savage animal and pressed her on his bed cushions.

He slammed his fist on the dresser of his organ, _damn that curious little wench._

A nostril flared out of his knowledge as he cursed the natural child-like curiosity that always provoked especially in women.

He sighed, _but she's my wench, my precious…beautiful little wench._

He finally moved away from his anger of her and buried his face in his hands, now beginning to outlet his anger on himself. He shook his hands-covered face with a groan of frustration; he soiled the good relationship of a student and teacher for one sick moment of savage action. What was he thinking? He could not possibly blame her for the matter, she was in the ripe of her teens, hormones and pressure her only advisors—he? He was a grown man, a _gentleman_, who knew better than to take advantage of an innocent, unknowing little angel such as she. As always, his beloved Christine was the unsuspecting victim and he the bloodthirsty monster, the ruddy child could never do a wrong. He should have known better…

His hand instinctively reached up to that forbidden region of his face, his trained fingers grazing in their punishment against the thick, horny flesh. They rode several trenches and valleys, grasping in disdain the skin that sagged and bunched under his drooped eye, the slits and craters that were helplessly embedded in every patch of flesh his ugliness held victim.

_He should have known better._

His forced his palm then to its unknown punishment and pressed it down on his face, feeling, hating, and loathing growing the more he touched until said hand brushed into his matted and messed hair. He yanked at his thick hair, held bunches of it in his large grasp as he felt a lump pierce his throat. Seeing the mask that still laid askew on the slope that lead into his watered pathway, where it had landed when she _had_ to pry it off.

Her cloak he had removed before the incident still laid there on the floor abandoned in fear and panic as he reached over for it, inhaling it searching for a trace of her. He was such a desperate, sick-minded bastard who knew from the moment when he returned her seduction that he was only eluding—deluding himself of the truth that had shone all too clear in her frightened eyes.

The cloak crumpled in his hands as he felt the material moist under his silent tears. He should've stopped cozening himself when he knew very well the power and influence he had over the girl. Had he relied on mind rather than heart, he at this moment would still be her idolized and adored teacher and he still at the least had her acceptance and willing company.

What a poor exchange, nearly seven years worth of trust and the only acceptance he had ever gotten for only a measly hour of…that.

He closed his eyes and remembered the way she squirmed so wonderfully underneath his touch, he bit his lip when his ears retold the beautiful way she moaned his name. His fingertips sizzled when they recalled the addictive rush of her skin under his influence.

Then eyebrows furrowed in penitence when his mind rewound the way her mouth rigged and jagged when his demon was revealed, the way her corneas bore in utter fear and trepidation. The way her skin paled disgustingly, as though her very blood froze in terror.

He shook his head as he raised his seat in ignominy deciding to take a thoughtful walk for the night, dropping the cloak on his organ pedestal.

As he put on his thick own cloak and reviewed the usual pathways of shadows he normal traveled by, he picked his mask and looked at it one last time with hatred more deadly than venom.

As he swept out of his quarters with a veil of night to disguise him, he kept thinking of the greatest sacrifice he had made and the even greater price he'd…_she'd_ have to pay for it.

_Terrible fate really,_ he thought in more sympathy for her than him, _such beauty she'd have to waste on one so inferior to her ravisher._

What a shame.

* * *

"Ms. Daae, a word, please?" Arthur called to the was-departing ballerina. 

"I'll talk to you later." Christine called over her shoulder to Meg who nodded and followed suit with the other leaving chorus girls.

"Yes, Monsieur Danteillo?" Christine said to her instructor who looked very handsome in his black-collared shirt and that terminated from their bagginess when they were tucked into more form-fitting brown slacks. She wiped her forehead from their rather hard practice session, newer moves and even a bit of character development for roles that he'd soon reveal.

His eyebrows flattened in a mock bother at the mention of his teacher name.

"…Arthur." She corrected herself.

He nodded in approval. "We need to practice our people skills, seems like someone is a bit too formal on themselves." He eyed her with a pretend-suspicious glare as she giggled.

"Nevertheless…" He continued as he wrapped a non-constrictive arm around her. "…I recall when you said you'd be turning fifteen, love?"

She half-smiled in dread and weary of what she knew he'd be proposing. "Yes?"

"What day, exactly, would that be?"

Her lips hinged in apathy, but kept her tone friendly. "Why, exactly, would you need to know?"

"Ah, Pandora has been pestering me."

She smiled a tired, but patient smile still rocked a bit by the priornight's misfortunes and finding herself a bit fatigued.

She gave a gentle wave of her hand. "It's a bit whiles away," She lied, unknowing why. "It's not important right now."

Arthur gave her another mock-suspicious arch of his eyebrow, before he smiled sweetly. "Very well, that's all I needed to know, I just remembered you saying of a birthday of yours coming and I just wanted to know when. Off you go, do…Christine things."

She laughed as she hurriedly skipped out of his presence and into the safety of her dorm.

Once more, she found Meg's little self busting about in her dorm almost as soon as she closed the door in hopes of regaining lost sleep, rather riling.

But she kept on smiling. "Meg, what brings you here?"

The blonde gave her friend a teasing smile. "The real question is, my friend, what brings _you_ and our instructor so…close together?"

Christine gave a feminine snort. "Please."

Meg continued smiling as she plopped on Christine's bed without invitation. "Oh come now, Christine, the man's barely landed here a week ago and already it is becoming rather obvious that you are his favorite pupil."

Christine kept her smirk serious. "It's all in that misled head of yours, Meg." She teased.

"Oh? So are you saying that it is all in _our_ misled heads as well?"

"What're you talking about?"

"I am not the only one who notices it, my friend."

"Bah, you're all just hallucinating."

"Or maybe _you_ are just too stuffy to see the truth…" Meg pestered on, her smile suddenly becoming a bit ruder with more genuine belief. "…Or maybe you're just to shy to _admit_ it."

Christine rolled her eyes, temper wearing thin on her. "Admit what?"

"That you and our teacher are a bit more than just formal acquaintances."

Christine felt like taking a nice flyswatter and just smacking it across her overly liberated mouth. The idea of flies reminded her of an innocent song the Madame had taught them both when they were young.

_Shoo fly, don't bother me._

_Shoo fly, don't bother me._

_Shoo fly, don't bother me._

_For I may have to whack you back._

The memory made a smile on her face and thickened her patience just a bit more.

"Ah, see! You're even smiling about it!"

Still smiling, Christine walked over to her friend and took her hands to lift her from her bed. Thinking Christine would probably confirm her assumptions, Meg eagerly complied and listened closely for her confession in vain.

Christine then began to lead her somewhere out of Meg's present interest, still intently staring into her eyes, ready to hear her verification.

But as Christine opened her mouth with her lips still curved sweetly a lovely voice instead of a concede floated from her mouth.

"_Shoo fly, don't bother me._

_Shoo fly, don't bother me._

_Shoo fly, don't bother me._

_Or I may have to whack you back_."

And before Meg could protest, a door suddenly closed to her dumbfounded face.

* * *

**Author's Notice:** Yes, yes, this chapter reviewed a bit of the unwritten moments of the aftershock of the great disastrous confrontation, I was going to write more for this chapter but then decided that I'd just end it with Christine shooing Meg out of her dorm just because I thought it was cute. Like I said, now the drama and clues of the climax of the story is on its way. For you Meg-lovers, know that I actually have nothing against the daughter of Madame Giry, for I like her character myself. I, as a writer just try to make my version of Christine a normal human (teenager) with her age's typical swings of mood. Anyways, enjoy it here, more action on the way! 


	14. Plans for Arrest

**Author's Notice:** Hello again, everybody. Once more, I give my gratitude to my readers and reviewers. Thank you all! Not much to say but how I dread to return to my sophomore year of highschool and that I must wake up early tommorow. Nutso. Anyways, enjoy. I personally didn't like the way I wrote this chapter but eh, every writer has their bad days.

* * *

_Chapter Fourteen: Plans for Arrest_

* * *

Christine looked down to her scattered bed sheets with longing, too overwhelmed with thought to even stir up anger for Meg's rather slob-like behavior. She collapsed on her bed instantly face-first and welcomed sleep's much-needed hand to whisk her away in slumber.

However, sleep was not welcomed into the hosts of her eyes.

She fought bravely and persistently to weight that perpetually threatened to seal her eyes to a close. She feared that even when helpless blinks overtook her eyelids that sleep would trick her into its unpredictable slumber, and that when she would be left helpless…

He may return.

Her skin crawled in fear; every few seconds her eyes darted once more to the two-way mirror that stood nearly at the foot of her bed in such a creepy manner that—until last night she had never fashioned with it before. The sweat and tears that soiled her once enticed skin still oiled her succulent flesh, that hairs at the back of her neck still pricked out from said flesh likes the bitterest of needles. She had half a mind to take her dresser and push it to the mirror, but the other half of her mind commanded her to stay put in fear or even going near said mirror.

_Please just leave me alone,_ she implored to her one track-set mind.

She took her sheets and pulled them over her head in consternation, and forced her eyes shut. Visions of that marred flesh; the hideousness of it even more exaggerated by the contortion of shock and venomous anger poisoned her victim mind. The way that one repulsive, droopy eye had slurred from its sunken socket in such a fluid, utterly nauseating way like the yolk from a mistreated egg still oozed vividly in her visions. The sagged, raw flesh that bunched in a horny calloused mound still flashed in her mental projectors. The fresh and hot saliva that shot from his sharp and dagger-like lips like an ill-tempered volcano still sat untouched on her ghost-like complexion. She feared her eyes may never be able to fully register that image for the rest of her living, that face will forever be a burden to her mental library of thoughts and images, a file that she would be doomed to inhabit in her cursed collection.

She closed her eyes and remembered the way his eyes bled in white-hot rage and blinding fury, the way his melodic voice suddenly transformed into a mutated sort of demonic pandemonium.

Like a chilling record player in her temples, the sound sent an awesome shiver that rattled her distressed bones.

She held herself tightly and bit her lip in a desperate attempt to hush the never-ending buzz that had deafened all other noises from her numbed ears, praying to God that she'd be granted at least one night of sweet sleep.

She could've stayed with Meg, or somewhere else or go search of Arthur and tell him—_no, no!_ She could never reveal her thoughts or the identity of her demonic angel to any soul, surely if she did she may have to spend her days out in a straitjacket.

_No, I must protect myself._

But somehow the thought didn't seem heartedly true. Was it really she who'd be in peril? No. Despite all that had happened, she had set his heart aflame by her own accounts, she was stupid enough to have removed something that was so obviously meant to have stayed. People do not simply wear masks for others to rip them off like ignorant savages. As always, he was the all-knowing angel who simply was cursed with a retched student as she, and as always the almighty music-god could never do a wrong.

And she?

She was merely an obtuse little dolt who had in her own idiocy taken for granted and abused the pity and sympathy of this kind man who was probably the only chance for a "friend" she will ever have. Had she relied on mind rather than heart she would've still been his cared-for and valued little student and kept at least his respect and compassion.

What a poor exchange, nearly seven years of the only true compassion and parental care (with the exception of Madame Giry) she had ever had and she traded it all away for a measly hour of…_that._

But despite that abhorred deformation of her Erik, despite that horrid way he screamed to her, she couldn't—just could not bring herself to loathe him the same way that mankind has presumably done so.

She did not regret the removal of his mask, but only wished that she weren't such a…such a…

She sighed.

Somehow, despite her admirable attempts to defy what had been aching in her eyes for so long, her vision blurred into black by the indomitable pull of that mischievous deliverer called slumber.

_It is he…it is he whom I had yearned, and now I may never be able to be let into his good music again._

Somewhere in the depths of her aching heart, her soul became perplexed of what, exactly drove her to need him so at that moment.

Even so, he probably wanted nothing more to do with her as she thought.

_What a shame.

* * *

_

"Do you really think there is a Phantom of this opera?"

"Don't be naïve, Griselle, this "Phantom" is merely an attraction so that fat bastard can get his weight in money from tourists."

A few giggles faded into the room.

The room of querying girls turned towards the foul-mouthed teenager of sixteen, who always had something of cynical nature always at the tip of her lips and (when the instructors weren't looking) had a cup of stolen brandy sink into her soiled tongue.

"I heard he had murdered many around this lot, though, Evie." Retorted one of the girls that were involved with the conversation.

The blonde-haired chorus girl turned to her darker-skinned peer. "We hear many things, Lemara, doesn't mean it's true. For all we know, those twits who say the things you hear probably performed said murders themselves and just use the phantom to cover up their shit and save their own asses."

Many girls in the talking circle nodded in understanding of Evie's rash logic.

"I mean, who really has seen the phantom? Don't you think if there was truly a bloody phantom there'd be some sort of _"wanted"_ poster or at least some sort of indication he was here at this populaire he has been rumored to have haunted?"

Now double the heads that have nodded before nodded again at the seemingly so truth.

Suddenly the door that was ajar ever so slightly to the room of huddled chorus girls swung open with a loud thud on the adjacent wall it slammed against.

The girls gasped in surprised of their newest participant of their conversation.

In the shadows he stood, taking a moment to remove something from his dirtied cloak when a sharp sound penetrated the silenced air like the unsheathing of some knife.

"How's this to your fancy?"

A thick paper was tossed onto the floor before the pouted-lipped Evie, determined not to be taken aback by the visitor. A verification to the assumptions of all ears, a knife snapped from the shadows and stabbed the top of the parchment that laid on the floor, pinning it into the wooden board.

Like corpse-hungered vultures, all of the once shocked maidens scurried forwards to get a look at the strange paper that was strung into the floor.

With a wave of her hand, Evie had backed the snoopy damsels away and snatched the parchment from the floor.

The one named Lemara spoke out first. "It appears to be a _"Wanted"_ poster, Evie."

The leader girl snorted and tossed the paper unnoticed over her careless shoulder.

"Is this some sort of joke?"

Even from his distance from the other inhibitors of the rather small room, lit only by numerous candles, the odor of the stranger still caught on to their noses and only broadened more and he stepped further away from the shadows.

"No joke, luv."

The light exposed the man's greasy black hair that hung over in clumps down to his hunched shoulders, eyebrows that slanted inwards in a permanent glare of his reptilian-like green eyes. His face was slim and lean; his nonexistent cheeks were sucked back into his mouth leaving his features glow all the more with his ominous smirk that he chucked towards Evie.

"What're you doing here anyways, Joseph?" Evie continued scoffing at the infamous housekeeper of the opera house. "This is a private conversation."

"Oh, I 'ave been to privet'er." Joseph snorted at her, giving her a wink of his crusted eye. "Rememba?"

Evie's face tightened a bit with the remembrance of how she had spent the night with the persuasive janitor in his small dorm. The charismatic man was about in his late forties, but still had the flirtatious skills of a man twice his age, luring many chorus girls into his quarters with his smooth tongue and charming enticements. The Madame always warned the ballerinas of the suspicious man, but whether just for the sake of disobeying or simply unable to resist his temptations the unlikely bachelor could always woo at least one maiden when the desire seized him.

"Anyways, m'deers…" He continued on, stretching his hand out for the retrieving of his poster. "…I just thought you lot ought to learn a lessin' from yer dear ol' Uncle Josie 'bout this phetnum."

At the mention of the masked murderer, all the dames present in the room huddled in a tight but distanced batch from the housekeeper as he pulled a stool from the corner of the room.

"Let no bloke tell ye any diff'rnt, there is a phentum in ar' midst, arligh'. I've seen 'im!" He growled in his grim storyteller tone, any stranger could ask any chorus girl who had been in the populaire since her childhood and every one of them will remember these similar stories from their days of innocence. Despite the housekeeper's never-ending lust for women and brandy, he never would be accused for any abuse for young children, for having lost his own daughter at the age of four for speculated reasons. The janitor always made it clear those children were always safe with him, and that he had great respect for all youths of innocence.

" 'E's got a great big bloody ol' droopy eye that sags from 'is sockut like a nice, sloppy wad 'o phlegm, and a batch of sagged skin that is bunched in a great 'eap of shit on 'is cheik. _'Ideous_ bastard dat fucka is, but the crap duzn't end there…can't even _begin_ to tell ye lot." He chuckled in a gurgle as he pulled a smoke from his pocket, lighting the tip of it with the flame of a candle.

He took a huff before blowing it out of his mouth in a stinky steam. "He'll kill enny poar bastard that even luks at 'im the wrung whey." Another huff seized the tense silence. Another smelly exhale as he rose from his stool. " 'Nd like a bloodthirsty vulchar, he creeps up on 'is victum as quiet as _death itself_…" At this, the housekeeper acted out his dialogue and crept sneakily towards the shaky crowd of cowering chorus girls, his voice ever-changing using each degree of voice he had to emphasize each word. "And with 'is dreaded Punjab lassu, 'e strikes like a cubrah and sinks 'is lassu around the colla' of his victum!"

The girls screeched as the terrifying custodian whirled into the scrambling crowd and watched in horror as he reenacted his tale by seizing his slimy hands on the throat of Evie who for the first time since the twisted janitor's arrival, flinched in fear of the man. Her hands instinctively reached for the hands that lightly constricted around her pulsing neck as she gasped in shock.

His smoke butted up and down with every word he said, ashy steam flickering in slinks into the air. " 'Nd when sumone gits to that stage…" He chuckled grimly after a _"that's a bit of a sticky wicket!"_ widen of his amused eyes, obviously enjoying the fear that encircled him from the rocked ballerinas. "…let's just say in the most basic terms—_yer fucked!_"

After the pronunciation of the vulgar word, he released Evie's stale neck from his grasp with such a careless departure, as though he had just discarded a piece of garbage. He laughed as picked up his poster from the floor, very much pleased by the many shaking damsels that trembled before him.

He straightened himself as he held the poster above his head, showing all an illustration of the masked murderer as they quivered before it. "He's real, alrigh. He's the most vicious and wanted murdera of all Paris! The bastar's got quite a purdy bounty on 'is 'ead. So the next time sum dolt's got ye thinkin' there's no phentum, just rememba the dreaded lassu—and what yer dear ole Uncle Josie sed to ya!"

He chuckled a phlegm-fattened chuckle in his thick throat as he unsheathed his dagger from the floor with a whisk. Just then to the gradually emerging relief of the chorus girls who thought the custodian would finally depart, he turned around to them just before he stepped out the door.

"…That is, if the _Phentum_ dusn't git to ya first!" He laughed at them with gross delight. "Ruma's are he lives right unda our very feet, in this vary oprah house! So if any of ye little gurls got any info, it'd be best if ye get it to sumone who can 'elp git him, the soona the betta!"

And with that, the housekeeper roared with laughter as he went out the door with a loud slam.

As it sucked in another huff of his smoke, his employer waited for him in the shadows.

"So, tell me, do they have any information we can use?"

"Give it time, boi. I just told the gurls what they need te know, if they got anythin' we can use, we'll get it soon enouf."

"For your sake, Joseph, I hope you're right. I am not paying you just to entertain a few invalid children."

"Hey chief, don't get your britches in a wad." Joseph huffed to his employer in a puff of smoke. "M'sources are wide, and m'services are just as useful—_if_ you keep yer side o' the bargin'."

"Just as we agreed on." The man in the dark said. "A thousand franks on your part for the arrest of the Phantom of the Opera."

"The fucka's snagged anyways, boss—it's just a matter o' time. You just keep our deal and patience at the ready, 'nd all will be well."

A chuckle. "I hope so." The second voice said.

"And why such a hurry ennyways, monsieur?"

"The faster I get the Phantom in, the faster I get my own reward. And I've already got a very valuable resource myself."

"Oh yeah?"

"It only goes to show you…_Josie_, that help can come from the most unexpected places. In this case, the most unexpected _people_ as well."

They chuckled in unison as they strolled away down the corridors with their heads held high.


	15. After Hours

**Author's Notice:** Thanks once more to all my beloved readers and reviwers. Having a nice summer? I hope so. Mine ends in 19 days (2 weeks and five days). Gah. Oh well, thanks to **Amunett** for giving a crap about it, thanks! I am loved! Nevertheless, read and review if you so desire, have a nice day. :)

* * *

_Chapter Fifteen: After Hours

* * *

_

Christine's eye fluttered open to the sound of laughter in the far distance, its sister still buried in her pillow. She sat upright in her bed, feeling her nerves thicken at last but felt a degrading sort of loneliness that gnawed at her aching heart.

She instinctively looked at her mirror, knowing the sickness that diseased her soul could only be remedied to contentment again by her absent mentor.

She sighed, wondering if he'd ever forgive to see her again, if she'd ever be able to grace alongside with him in his secret watery pathways on his majestic gondola.

She decided perhaps a walk for the night would be best for her.

She slipped on a fair nightdress whiter than the snow that crusted the outside realm, a few simple sashes and ruffles around the bosom area that pooled into long luscious sleeves that fanned open just so sensibly at her wrists. Taking the sash from behind, she mentally calculated which string was to be tied where, and secured a knot to keep the dress together. She looked around for her midnight-blue cloak and then realized that it must have been marooned back at the lair of her former teacher. She shook her head at the idea of slipping through the two-way mirror to retrieve it once more, she'd rather suffer mild chills than provoke any more detest from the one whom she still idolized and respected so greatly.

To keep her ears warm, she took a veil to match her nightgown and wrapped it around the lower portion of her face, tucking it behind her ears. With all that done, she journeyed out of her dorm and braced herself for the chilly night snow that would surely numb her overwhelming thoughts.

She stepped in the hallway that was blinded by the great shadows that cascaded all around the corridor, white moonlight exaggerating all darkness in contrast to itsbright splendor.

She made sure to keep well in the shadows, using ballerina instincts to lift her tiny feet of noises and carry her legs with swift indefectibility.

She snuck until she saw a sash of poisoned golden break the plentiful shadow, realizing it to be the chorus girls' dormitories' storage room she also knew it to be a room where many of said chorus girls gathered and exchanged meaningless chitchat—mostly about men and sexual tips. Although she detested the subjects and mindless topics that usually polluted the atmosphere in that room, she did feel a twinge of saddened jealousy in her breast. Sometimes, she just wished to at least be able to sit in the room and be involved in their idiotic laughter or feel the acceptance of her peers warm her wearied spirit. The way they would embrace one another or enjoy each other's company almost made them seem like a family altogether, even Meg had the invitation to envelop in that blissful exultance. And she? Not really. She could, of course, get into the room with them and sit down and listen and they'd never bother or molest her the way Carlotta took such pride in doing. But she discovered the humiliation of her bullying and the loneliness of her isolation was actually on the same level of misery, just with different titles. She sighed as she paced around the light, making sure to avoid being seen through the small slit of light, and was about to hurry away from the room when something caught her sharp ear.

"…_Oh yes_, Monsieur Danteillo's so very handsome." One said.

"He knows it, as well." Another commented.

"No shit." A third voice whom Christine recognized as the cynical, sarcastic, popular Evie Wettlingham stated, her rude voice edged in bitter truth. Judging from the faint smell that reached her nostrils, she knew Evie had snuck herself another smoke. "Danteillo can sleep with any girl in these dorms, he can bed himself a pick from nearly the entire populaire."

Christine always faced an immediate blush whenever the mentioning of "sleeping with someone" reached her innocent ears. She remembered years ago when she was about eleven or so, she remembered a more chubbier, comical Evie talking about that very same subject. Out of her innocence, she pulled on the sleeve of Evie's blouse and asked her what the phrase meant, with a motherly—almost warm smile, Evie only patted her bony shoulders and told her that it would be something she'd show to her later that night.

"It's what makes babies come into being." She smiled at her in a sisterly manner.

During the rehearsal of that day, she spent all her practice session and afterwards until the learning hour came picturing an unwanted child as an outcome of two people innocuously sleeping next to each other. She smiled when she remembered the fear that quaked in her jellied knees when she consternated the idea that she may be secretly pregnant with Meg's baby when she realized that Meg and she at the time shared beds.

That night, around midnight, she was woken from her sleep by Evie herself and was quietly escorted out of her dorm without waking Meg up.

"Should I bring Meg along?" She heard her childish voice pipe to Evie.

"No need, Christy," Evie used to call her. "She already knows about this stuff."

Evie lead Christine into a section that Madame Giry had described as "off-limits" and took her into a part of the populaire she hardly knew of.

"This is the boy's dormitories." The older one whispered to her.

"Aren't we prohibited from this side of the opera-house?"

"Nah, that's just what the old bag wants you to think."

She took her into a tight corridor that completely blinded the little preteen from pure dark, when a squeak of something uncapped caught her ears she saw a small hole of light bleed from the wall she discovered was in front of her.

"Evie, what's—?"

She was shushed gently and Christine immediately complied with silence, shortly a feminine moan seeped out of the luminous hole in the wall. Christine instinctively felt her cheeks burn with unknown embarrassment and as she looked to Evie she was surprised to see the teenager's lightened green eyes sparkle in excitement and focus, her back erected in attention. It reminded her of herself whenever Erik taught her a new way to hold her note longer, avoid cracking in her voice, and keep her breathing intact.

Another moan, this time masculine. A funny sort of creaking became audible through the wall; something the preteen imagined the result of a dozen chortling mice.

The hungered, almost desperate look that enkindled from Evie's conflagrated eyes nearly scared the child. She took a half-step backward when yet another moan—this time a duo effort—called from the hole. Evie smirked to herself and then backed away from the little portal and nodded to Christine to step up and have her turn to look through.

The now-teenager shook her head at the memory, recalling how when she was younger had looked up to Evie so much, always admiring the rather handsome way she exhaled her smoke and the kind of pretty rubber her skin became whenever she would have herself one too many brandies.

"But I have heard he's got an interest already in that Christine Daae, Evie."

A snort ripped through the heavy air.

"Toys can only warm a bed for so long, Jeanette." She heard Evie flout. "Then again, being engaged to someone like Carlotta, it would make _even Daae_ appear remotely appealing."

"Quite a bitter thing to say, Evie."

Christine stomach clenched at Meg's voice.

Another snort.

"The only thing that's bitter around here, Meggie dear, is Arthur's taste in whores."

Christine's heart wrenched when she heard many soft giggles and chuckles murmur in the room.

"As soon as he's had his fill of her and realizes there are more better lovers, he'll come after them. He'll smarten up soon enough."

"I sense perhaps a bit of envy of position, Evie?"

Laughter was the first response.

"Listen to yourself, Meg, why would I be jealous of a capable twig? For all we know, Arthur's probably just using her for his firewood."

A chorus of giggles chortled in unison, Christine smelled a fresh puff of Evie's exhaling.

"It's only malarkey if his so-called interest in her lasts for more than a few more days—a week perhaps if he's especially sympathetic." Another puff. "Daae's got to be even more of a crazed slut than I thought if she thinks that Arthur really likes her."

"She's crazed, all right."

Christine's heart suddenly stopped beating.

"Listen to this, I start asking her what's going on with her and Monsieur Danteillo, and before I knew it, she kicked me out of her dorm singing some stupid song about _flies._"

Christine's mind grew very wearied of the crazed laughter that seized her pained ears.

"What a freak!"

"My apologies, though, Evie." Meg giggled. "I suppose our little floozy friend didn't want to tell us much right now."

"That'd be alright, there wouldn't be much to tell after Danteillo's little fire-stick burns out."

Christine had enough; she sprinted down the black corridor with the insane laughter still breathing on her victim ears.

Tears began to blur her vision, nocturnal shadows not helping her view any better as she ran wildly in blind fury.

Only when she was smacked down from her feet did she realize the error of her ways.

"_Oh dear God!_ I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" A voice at the corner of her mind kept whispering dimmed by the splitting throb that now began to fizzle in her temples. Pain and desperation overtook all her better instincts and in defeat had let her tears gloat to her of her weakness.

She was hoisted onto her feet but couldn't keep her balance when her knees only buckled shut once more. Her back, however, never reunited with the floor when she felt herself being propped up into someone's muscular arms. Something firm tapped her cold cheek gently, but she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. She let her head loll back over her shoulders as she felt a strong hold support from her back and knee-shafts.

She felt body bounce up and down slightly in rhythm with someone's walking. Where would they carry her? To an infirmary? Erik? An asylum?

_Oh God, please, no._

Her throbbing head beseeched a rest and her trembling body implored defeat, but she was determined. No way in hell would she let them take her away, she would not rot away in a straitjacket.

With whatever adrenaline she had left, she bucked and jerked in his resisting grasp, using her helpless arms to push and shove at her self-unknown abductor.

"_No!_ Let me go! I don't want to go with you!"

His voice strained in trying to keep her legs together and brushing away her mad hands.

"Mademoiselle, please! I am only trying to help you!"

If rage and fear hadn't seized her panicked mind, she would've been able to recognize that shocked voice.

Finally she jolted her leg and with all her might swung it out of his grasp, immediately with him distracted and unable to posture herself, she fell from his arms and felt her back slam against the marble floor. With breath being coughed from her lungs, she lied there helpless and didn't even have the strength to reapply the veil that fell from her face.

"_Christine?_"

She groaned from the pain and forced her limbs to twinge in a feeble attempt to push herself back on her numb feet, but in vain and only believed that it was now her eyes that could be alert. As she forced them in slits to open, she saw the worried and panicked blue eyes of Arthur staring desperately back at her.

"A…Arthur?"

His crumpled eyes only bore a hint of a smile as he swept her in his arms again. She let him this time and only fought the urge to resign into the blackness that threatened to shut her slits of eyes. She felt his stare bare an observation of her condition, and she felt his tense body calm down only slightly. She wondered what he was doing here at this hour.

"It seems you'll be okay in a bit, albeit you'll have a few nasty bruises." He said as he turned towards the way she came. Hell no, she didn't want to go back into her dorm, she needed some air, for the love of Diana, if she kept any longer within these claustrophobic walls she felt she would die. She needed to get away from this horrific place.

She squirmed sensibly within his arms. "N…No."

She felt him stop walking. "What?"

"I don't want to go back there." Came a raspy explanation.

"You need to, Christine, you need rest."

"No." She answered with more defiance in her tone. "Please, take me anywhere but here."

"Christine, you must—"

"I said _no,_ goddamn you!" She shouted at him, her eyes completely open and shot deadly into his pupils. She began to find breath and began to fight back again to his superior hold.

She was surprised when he held her tighter against his chest, cutting her off from more room to struggle. He'd take her back, and she'd have to spend her night in that awful dorm of hers, surrounded by hypocritical whores whom didn't care a dime for her, no Erik, no Madame, no Meg. No nothing.

It was curious, though; if he was going to take her back that he turned the opposing way.

"Wh—What?" She huffed in a whisper so quiet, that it frightened her when he responded to it.

"Very well, I won't take you back to your dorm...for now. I'll take care of you, but you must promise me not to fight and try to run off again."

She mustered her head in a nod and finally relaxed into his embrace.

She felt herself being loaded into a carriage and the clank of horse-buckles click against the cement flooring of the outside. Arthur hand-held a whisk of water into her mouth and urged her not to get up, something about errands was all that she could decipher as he unloaded himself for his car.

He blanketed her with his thick coat and the veil helped keep her sensitive skin saved from the unbelievably cold and dank humidity. The blessed water finally was working its way to replenish her crumpling veins and fed energy to her dearth legs. She rose from her laid position and saw through a veil of snow that she was in front of the police headquarters of Paris.

_Oh right,_ she recalled, _commissioner._

She thought it nothing especial if she walked into Arthur's office to let him know she was well again. She walked into the building and into the only office with its light on and saw Arthur leaning over a desk that was masked by numerous documents and files splayed over its unseen wooden face. Random pistols and shotguns were decorated on the walls hung up by hammered-in nails.

"Arthur?"

He jerked around in a panicked spasm as he set his startled eyes on her surprised own while many of his documents were pushed to the floor.

"Oh!" He breathed in relief, a hand guarding his chest as though she would try and spear it as a smile began to break from his lips. "Christine, dear, you should not sneak up on me like that!"

She only smiled at him.

"I see you're doing better, that's good. I was hoping you'd recover, you had me worried there, Ms. Daae."

"Water was what helped me back on my feet."

"You've been dehydrated, love." He said as he wagged a sincere finger at her. "It's never healthy to ignore your fluids, the result can be even more costly than just a mere slip on the floor."

"I know, thank you Arthur."

"I would've rushed you to an infirmary had not your veil exposed whom you were, seeing your face I thought 'Christine? What's wrong with her?' so I thought it better to take a second look at you very quickly. Saved us both a bit of trouble."

They exchanged smiles as Arthur crouched down and began recollecting his dispersed files.

"If I could ask, what were you doing hiding your face?"

Christine got on her haunches as well and began picking away the gradually diminishing number of scattered papers.

"Oh, I just decided to take a walk to get some fresh air." She responded while another parchment fell victim to her recruiting hands.

It was only when she saw Arthur's hands stop dead on the floor and the doubled sound of captured files reduce to a singular syllable did she force a gaze at his serious and penetrating eyes.

"My dear, one does not fight like a madwoman and "goddamn me" when all they seek is some "fresh air"."

She held her breath and smiled a pathetic smile while her eyes marooned his own and reached for a poster that sat between them, but she would not be able to take it.

His large hand covered and gently pressed down her petite one on the floor and she forced another look at him, this time biting her lip.

"Christine, you were crying. You seemed so desperate to get out of there and screamed at me. Please," He beseeched her, letting his fingers cup to grasp her entire hand. His blue eyes chewy with sorrow and compassion as she knew Arthur would be the only one she's have left. "I only want to help you because I care."

Suddenly Erik's words rang in her ears, and in white-hot anger from all the other people whom she'd trust, she yanked her away her hand in attempt. Arthur held tight, albeit, but was taken aback by her sudden strength as she was also unsuspecting of it and lost her balance. Her back met the floor in a more gentle together when Arthur fell onto her, the hands that were linked together now pressed from his behalf into the ground. Momentum pushed Arthur beyond his help down and jab his lips on her inner cheek.

They both stiffened under the awkward situation and Arthur noticed with shy eyes the truly remarkable shade of red his student did turn from this rather suspicious circumstance.

Their eyes met and Arthur even felt his own cheeks sizzle for some reason, propping himself with his free hand he put his weight on his hips and caused himself to rub against her in such a strange way she never felt before. He saw her body flinch at the gesture and hoisted himself up and off of her. Offering a helping hand to her, she accepted with her head bowed down, crumpling the piece of paper that was in her hand in nervousness.

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck with his blue eyes also concentrated on his tiled floor.

"Um, sorry." Was all he said.

"It's okay." She replied in a whisper.

Snowflakes could be heard tapping the light snow from outside.

"I think I will wait in the carriage." She stated as she began turning around to the door.

Arthur was about to let her go when he remembered why they were caught like that in the first place.

"Ms. Daae," He called after her firmly. "I believe I had asked you a question, it's rude not to answer."

With her back turned to him, she took in a deep breath deciding what was the best thing to do.

She exhaled and responded to him in the most emotionless, most sincere way she had ever heard herself speak. "Some questions are even ruder to ask, Monsieur Danteillo. My business is my own, and I choose not answer your question, thank you."

A mixture of gentle shock and surprise took over his mellow features before he simply flattened his reaction and gave a solemn nod.

With that, she walked out of his office with determination in her pride. She would not displease her angel again.


	16. Plagues of the Phantom

**Author's Notice:** Yes, yes, I have taken a bit to update but I must install a warning to all my faithful readers-reviewers, out of my love for writing my story and for the need to let you guys all know the big finale of my story I will never abandon this story unless absolutely unchangeable circumstances should arise. However, since the beginning of my sophomore year is drawing to a nearly-week-away near, I must say that you can now expect updates a bit more later depending on the freedom of my schedule. (About every three-five days or perhaps every weekend.) Also, this may be the last update for a while because I want to dedicate this second-last weekend of mine to finish a very important English project. If I finish early, I can sneak in one last chapter of my summer's end. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter hopefully more than I did, once again, I didn't feel so happy with it. Anyways, I want to give my usual thanks to all who read and reviewed and remind everyone that reviews and constructive critism is always welcomed here.

A special thanks to my two most reliable reviewers: **Jelinda.The.Good **and **Amunett**. Seeing your guys' loyal reviews always makes me tingle with happiness.

Crap, I can't make the rulers to seperate the paragraphs here. Nuts. Oh well. Bear with me.

And as always, to all, have a nice day. :)

_Chapter Sixteen: Plagues of the Phantom_

She strolled into her opera house with her nose airborne; her constantly narrowed, almost Asiatic eyes slithered from one side to the other keeping a cobra-sharp watch on everything. Christine would've thought she'd be pretty if her foul temper and slightly chubby anterior mutated any and all that was good of her. The young chorus girl watched from behind her place of the undusted corners of the stage as the self-righteous diva swaggered before the tribe of other chorus girls.

She always expects there to be a gala every time she makes an appearance.

Christine watched with fatigued and frankly annoyed eyes as Carlotta strolled to front stage now even taking a blink's-glance at any ballerina who paid her a compliment or greeting of her return; the best anyone would get would be a "Yes, I know.", or if you're lucky she'll reply "How nice for you.".

She strutted up to the stage only to be welcomed by her fiancé who waited for her with crooked lips in a smile and the ends of his blue eyes crumpled in anticipation.

"Darling, fiancé!" He exclaimed as his arms unfolded looking as handsome as he always did. He wore snug black slacks that exposed through its coverings the many muscles of his strong, robust, and sturdy legs. He also had on a manly midnight blue collared shirt that draped onto his thick and tight collar and then sucked into his pants.

He was just so handsome.

At the sight of him, Carlotta's eyes glistened in rapture as she jogged the remaining of the ways up to him and nearly tackled the man in an embrace.

"Ah, love!" She squealed as she constricted her flabby arms around his neck. "It is good to see another lovely face, finally!"

Arthur chuckled a rather indifferent chuckle as his chin hooked over her shoulder and he patted her back in a quick, rather desperate sort of way.

He was the first to break the hug.

"My dear how was your initiation?" Asked he while he tucked a tuft of her scratchy cinnamon-brunette hair behind her waxy ears.

Her eyes fluttered in exultance at the mention of her favorite subject: herself. "Ah, droll, love. I just had some paperwork to follow out on and a few instructions since I _am_ the chorus instructor of this opera house and head manager. Quite a lot to go over, you know."

Arthur gave her a fatigued smile, as though his muscles had been smiling for years.

"Yes, well…" He began, as he turned toward his crowd of students still standing in attention. "I think you might want to know, these young and extremely talented women I see before me are probably the most well-mannered, sophisticated, and beautiful individuals I have ever had the pleasure to have known."

From the corner of Christine's eye, she saw Carlotta's features harden slightly in unconvinced arrogance, only changing these features to a tight and suffocated smile when Arthur turned towards her. She stepped out in front of Arthur and although she kept her smile, her eyes resumed back into those reptilian slits of hatred and self-believed superiority.

That's when Carlotta's cold amber-green eyes settled on a small form concealed in the grays of a corner of the stage. She tightened her eyes to decode whom it was and then with her eyes laminating with pure delight, she cracked an evil smile out of her square-like lips.

Christine half-expected the diva to approach her and taunt her like so many times before, but instead she saw her turn to her groom-to-be and whispered something in his ear.

"And how was that little one, Daae?"

Arthur looked at his bride-to-be with indifference and simply responded. "She's one of my the fastest learners."

Carlotta's boxy lips pouted into a stressful smile but her eyes easily oozed with conflagrated hatred and jealousy. No one surpasses _Carlotta the Diva_ in _anything_.

"…And one of the sweetest little things I have ever seen."

Carlotta felt her lips were stenciled to a painful smile. How the bloody hell do these little twits keep this up all day?

"Lovely." She said with a daggered grin. "Well, I feel I have felt at home long enough, dear, I think I will retire to my quarters now."

"Certainly, my love."

Carlotta twittered a curtsey for her fiancé before she turned to her former peers.

"My students…" She stated in a gurgled sort of voice, trying to edit her usual tone of vicious hissing and seemed to fail miserably in trying to disguise said tone with a more warmer—civilized kind of sound that in malfunction mutated into that of an angered cat.

"…I hope you have enjoyed these days with my fiancé as your teacher, but as rumored, I will take that position from here. I can tell you, however, that what he has taught you was no folly and that all you have learned will be a routine used in our newest opera written by my fiancé himself—_Le Seduction De Folle_."

The news took the entire chorus by delighted surprise, the mentioning of a new opera sounded precious to them all especially since the departure of their former manager. The entire populaire sounded with cackling applause and Christine hooked an eyebrow to Arthur who stood very still in a sophisticated and mannered way with his hands behind his erected back. His smile somehow didn't seem natural as the applause and cheer began to emerge in volume, the crook of his lips somehow seemed straighter, flatter and apathetic.

She had no idea Arthur was so musically advanced to write an opera himself.

She'd have to ask him about that sometime.

Carlotta stormed in her spacious and luxurious room and was greeted immediately with the stench of something eerily familiar…

Carlotta immediately flashed her nose with a hook of her nostril and simply believed that her room was just decaying in the absence of her loveliness.

_No matter, I have returned. _She thought with a confident smile.

Everything else was left perfectly in place; her bed sheets were flat and neatly made, her drawers polished and luminous, and not one door or closet hinge left open.

Carlotta sat down at her dresser and began to detach the clips and barrettes that held her hair ridiculously high and began to dispose of them in one of her drawers.

The only thing that was peculiar, albeit, was when as soon as her meaty fingers took hold of the handle of her drawer did she feel something slimy ooze on her fingertips.

At that moment, there was an eccentric sort of creaking vibrating within her walls unlike anything else she had heard before. She rose from her stool and looked for a handkerchief in another drawer when she felt something sticky peck at her finger. With a yelp, she jerked her hand away and shut the drawer to a fearful shut, too frightened to even look at what had stricken her.

She stared at nothing for a moment before she exhaled a rigid breath, trying to keep a calm self at ease.

_It is nothing, I had probably just been away for longer than I sensed._

_Creak._

_I probably just need some sleep._

_Creak._

She shook her head as she removed her feather boa from her neck and coat as she began to set them down easily on her stool, wanting nothing more at the moment than to relax and lay down on her comfy and welcoming bed.

As she laid her head on her pillow, the pillow suddenly became alive and capable of emotion as it was saturated in its…tears, right?

Carlotta lifted her head in disgust and felt its moisture goop in her dry hair. She reached towards her pillow and turned its departing side downward and saw in absolute horror several corpses of dead toads pour from the slit of her pillow case and watch the overall form of her pillow begin to shrink down to a shrivel of slimed cloth.

She shrieked as she saw the gushy blood glaze the lifeless corpses collect on her bed and she jumped up immediately and scooped her precious coat and boa in her hands, not wanting any of this filthy ooze on her most prized possessions.

_Creak._

That retched noise was becoming more louder.

She hurried off to her closet to keep her blessed clothes clean while she would go rush and find some help and haply an explanation.

_Creak._

Whilst she opened the doors of her closet, she realized this task would be a bit more difficult than can be expected.

_**CROAK.**_

As soon as Carlotta locked her widened amber-green eyes on their large, reflective, black eyes she screamed in pure consternation. As if on the cue of a war cry, an army of toads hopped towards her, her drawers bucked open and another assembly of toad-troops charged out towards their enemy in an ambush.

She continued screaming as she coiled her precious prizes to her chest and cowered to the twisted amphibians.

That was when _it_ jumped out.

The biggest one in the room, not a toad—but a great, hideous, mucky bullfrog hopped from the top of her closet and found itself comfortably settled in the mass of her grizzly hair.

It could be said that all four corners of the opera house could hear the ear-curdling scream.

Who in the retched hell had the insane sense to do this to her, _La Carlotta?_

That's for a certain opera ghost to know and she to find out.


	17. WinterNight Waltz

**Author's Notice:** Hello hello hello again everyone. Welp, I am just saying here that I start school in two more days (yes, this Wednesday) and I am not looking forward to it. Ah well. That's the bad news, the good news is that I finished my homeowkr assingement that had me delay all you an update for the past week and a half. Just for the delay, I made this chapter extra long and extra clueful (a word? It is now.) with many details. I really liked this chapter and hope you all can guess who "winter" really is. Lots more on the way, this fic is far from over, stay tooned!

**Jelinda.The.Good:** Yes, my dear, I did feel that last chapter was a bit rushed. I didn't like it much either but I was desperate and impatient, forgive me. :)

As always, thanks to all who read and reviewed, reminding that constructive cristism is always welcomed and forevermore have a nice day. :)

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_Chapter Seventeen: Winter-Night Waltz_

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"And I want every single one of them either dead or tossed back into their retched pond!" She bellowed at the scurrying housemaids, only two there was, plump middle-aged widows who already began sprouting white from their roots. One of them made a face at the other while their backs were turned to the railing diva, trying their best to catch up to the amphibians that kept hopping away from their grasps.

"Have this place cleaned and free of any toad of frog in three hours or I will personally send you both on your ways and join the very beasts you collect!"

With a flip of her grungy and matted hair Carlotta swaggered out of her dorm with her acute chin held high and an ominous smile manipulating her thin, boxy lips. She knew her dorm would be spotless by the time she returned, she knew those maids quaked in their jingly legs at the mention of firing them. They were childless widows with no where else to go for either shelter or food, old in age and ignorant of the streets; she remembered seeing those same women crawling their ways into the opera-house a few years ago. She remembered the way they groveled at the feet of an uneasy Madame Giry and pleaded for work, their clothes saturated in sweat, rain, and tears.

Carlotta smirked. _Ah, poverty is such an easy advantage._

As much as she liked manipulating her pathetic employees to her every amusing whim, she had more things to take care of. Something from the smelly ooze in her hair misleadingly told her perhaps a little ingénue had something to do with it.

She knocked on her student's door with an inpatient knuckle and when she didn't receive a response and could hear no shuffling of neglect she knew the one must have gone.

"My little cocotte pupil must have fled in fear." She hissed in a spit-filled scowl, feeling disappointed that the pretty little images of that Daae girl sodden in her own tears by a good verbal assault. A little whack on the head even sounded heavenly to the seethed Carlotta, but alas, the tart wasn't in her dorm. What? A tart she now is? What happened to toad?

Carlotta scoffed at the way she remembered Arthur's eyes soften at the mention of that retched girl's name. It's always _her_. She was Madame Giry's favorite student and everyone on the chorus loved her for her blasted innocence and damn baby-sweet face. It took years of scheming and shrewd tactics to foil her spotless record. She even had told Evie Wettlingham, the one who loved Daae the most it was the then-preteen who actually had revealed the teenager's "tawdry act" of showing her two people doing a "prohibited sin" as Madame Giry had said. From that day she knew she had hit a tender spot, from the moment Evie heard the tale she in fury had spread the word to everyone who would listen that "the Daae girl could not be trusted". No one knew that it was actually the act of Simon Bouquet, the other less famous custodian of the opera house who had exposed Evie's sin after Carlotta gladly gave him the spiteful tip of her whereabouts. Carlotta didn't really like Wettlingham either, and driving two of her greatest self-unknown rivals to become bittersweet enemies always sent giddy shivers up her spine.

Suddenly, something jingled in rhythm with her footing when she took a defeated step away. Curiosity poked at her mind and she sent a snoopy hand down the pocket from which the sound sourced. As soon as she felt its forgotten metal and jagged ridges a most maligned smile made itself acute on her dry lips. She took the keys from her pocket and singled out the one that she knew could help her do the most deliciously pernicious deed she probably will ever do. Let this bitch know never to upstage, surpass, or rob _La Carlotta_ again.

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Christine for the first time since her last night in Erik's lair felt wondrously free hurrying about in the quiet streets of Paris with the little money she took with her. She made sure to be more careful about going out on her escapes to keep a low profile and move quickly in the early twilight hours. Without sight or ear of Arthur or the other backstabbing chorus girls Christine was free from that retched opera house. With a dark blue veil and a light blue—almost white—dress she decided to get herself a little something for the day that would strike its first hour at tommorow's midnight. After all she had been through, didn't she deserve at least something for her troubles? She wandered with liberating feet from shop to shops wondering with excited power of her small tokens what she would take.

_I deserve something. I deserve something._ She kept repeating in her head, but she felt there was truly nothing she desperately wanted or needed for herself.

She remembered how when she was younger, fresh from the burial day of her father, she sat around in a circle of the chorus girls who would become her icy neglectors. Joseph Bouquet was telling another one of his enchanting tales; his favorites were usually stories of Greek mythology, his own personal life stories and fairy tales to hex and indulge his young listeners with handsome princes, and sinister witches with their knelling laughs. He knew, however, that the children always loved stories of the princesses the best. He would describe in bewitching detail their dresses and gowns "more shinier than the cleanest franc", and riches more bountiful than "the very snot in yer nose" he would say with a tethered and grunted chuckle in his thick throat. At these statements, she still could hear the chorus of _"ooh"s_ and _"ahh"s_ that always harmonized after every verse of his tale and still see the way Carlotta's preteen eyes had glittered in malicious greed and admiration.

Christine shook her head with a thoughtful smile and wandered absentmindedly into a florist, that's when she saw it: the most brightest red that stood florescent in the mix of pastel colors. It had many slits and valleys all varying in many fantastic shades and colors from blood red to the brightest rouge that coaxed a hypnotic beckoning to her and helplessly drew her near to it.

"I see you favor the wild rose."

Christine felt her neck hairs ruffle a bit with the interruption but then adjusted to the tall man who had a friendly smile glowing at her. She nodded with her head as a polite smile graced her lips while her large chocolate eyes took this as a cue to observe her newest acquaintance. The man looked to be about in his late forties, had dark gray hair that crowned his entire head in a thin veil and icy blue eyes almost as fair and as pastel as the very dress she wore. His build was tall and lean stroked with a soft hay of hazelnut hair that ruffled on the calves of his arms, he had sturdy legs—she could tell—by the way they bulked from his uniform's dark green slacks. The wrinkles that scratched at his aged face crinkled in a friendly and almost fatherly manner as the brown apron he wore laid flat on his firm anterior. Despite the friendliness that evaporated from the kind-seeming stranger, there was something in his stance, the comical look in his eyes, and squiggly lips that rang a bell in Christine's memory…

"It's very beautiful." She said to him.

"Birds of a feather…" He said as he took the rose in question and twirled it in his strong fingers, a smile feathering at her. "I can see why you'd want it."

She laughed comfortably with him.

"Who's it for, love?"

She opened her mouth to give him the reason she thought was true, but with a hook of a caught eyebrow she hunched her mouth in thought. After a few seconds, the man's smile widened as his back turned away from her in a comforting laugh.

"That's alright, you probably have too many boyfriends to choose from anyways."

Christine's lips gave a hint of acuteness but her mind poked with confusion.

"Monsieur?"

She saw him turn around to her with raised eyebrows and childish eyes hovering over a canteen of water. He swallowed.

"Pretty dame like yourself would be swamped with lads over her, right?"

She blushed and giggled at the man.

"Not really."

With a flick of his wrist he snorted a comical snort as he took another drink.

"Their loss then, my dear. You seem like a sweetheart, a lovely little thing I'd like for a daughter."

She couldn't help but grin at the most sweetest compliment she believed she had ever received.

"Haven't you children, sir?"

He gurgled in mid-sip and wiped his mouth with a clam and almost—icy? —hand.

"Not I, mademoiselle."

She looked down at the rose he had laid on his countertop and allowed her gaze to drift elsewhere in sympathy for the man. He looked like a hard worker by the tones of his firm body; he looked like a model father. A pity some parents couldn't have children…

_A pity some children couldn't have parents._

This was where she unveiled herself from her thought and resettled back into the present world, once there she was greeted by an assortment of sweet-aroma colors that glowed from all the obscurity that forever seemed to stalk her. Her eyes glistened in enticement at the sight of the bright things that wheedled her over to them.

"Ah yes, having difficulty deciding which one you'd want?"

Christine observed the roses in their different shades and nodded her head in a resigned shrug.

"I suppose."

"Then maybe you should give your roses in accord to what message they bring."

She hooked an eyebrow at him.

"Oh?"

"For instance, a red rose symbolizes love and passion typically." At this, he took hold of a random red rose and twirled it before her eyes. "A white rose means friendship and compassion."

A white counterpart joined its red sister in the twirling symphony.

"And that's pretty much all you need to know about them, especially since they're usually the two people buy the most."

Christine considered this is her mind and then took hold of her riches in her tiny palm.

"How much is one, monsieur?"

He smiled at her formal language and then leaned over to her ear.

"I usually charge three francs per rose, but for you, how about just one each?"

She smiled at his generosity and made sure not to collect too many roses on his discount.

She gathered one red and two whites, all chosen under her unknown influence.

"Three francs, si'vou plait." He charged.

She gladly paid him and thanked him again for his unnecessary generosity with an energetic shake of his hand and the sweetest grin she could muster.

"What is you name, monsieur?"

"Edward, my dear. And yours?"

"Christine."

She left with her prizes and waved her newest friend a goodbye once more, feeling somehow a bit warmer despite the snow that frosted the night.

She arrived at the face of the opera house feeling a bit more rejuvenated and ready for whatever it may throw at her. Still, she loved the liberation of unlimited stepping-ground and the icy freedom that chilled her lungs so deliciously with untamed midnight air. Her dress fluttered in a rippling dance, the briskly air sneaking up her dress and setting adrenaline to her hot insides while the swift air brushed at the cleavage of her bosom.

It was so good to be _away_.

She brought her roses to her nose and inhaled gently, the sweet aroma intoxicating her weakened nostrils as she wished dearly that there would be someone beside her…

She sniffed at the flowers again and once more felt its adrenaline accelerate in her rushing veins. Her mind flushed with its powerful scent as she felt weight come to settle gently on her shoulders, making her tiny feet somehow sink into the snow.

Things began to blossom around her and suddenly her view became stretched and elongated in its strange new bouncy face. She remembered similar views when Madame Giry brought her to a circus years ago along with a school of young and snipping chorus girls. The exotic mirrors, she remembered, bent all the laws of physics and portrayed her body in fantastic shapes and forms all varying from mirror to mirror. As the scenery around Christine now began to grow pleasantly obscure, her mind played and bounced in a medley of soft and whimsical bloom while the cold of reality began to loose its chilly grasp on her. In the distance of her bleached mind, a soft music began to symphonize in its hollow glory, an assortment of chimes, pianos, and tender violins were sympathizing to the projectile of her mind. Her body became enslaved to the music she heard and felt herself completely lock in this new world she was abducted to.

Her feet gently tapped on the snow, one by one until the coax of song began to fancy her feet into sharper play. All that was inanimate began to glow against the dark of her surroundings and swayed alongside her in music's instruction, even the winter breeze began to take form…

A harp joined the assembly of harmonies and sang in its lamentable solo as winter took hold of Christine's hand, leading her, guiding her through the snow-flaked night. She smiled a drunken smile and closed her eyes in bliss, her feet as soft as a feather's never making any sharp indentions on the white floor, just a faint stippling.

She floated barley centimeters above the snowy ground and looped in her waltz like a honeyed bee clumsy with its fill of beautiful nectar. When she felt a weight on her hip she made a discovery that fluttered her heart…

Winter was a man.

His faceless form enveloped her in his refreshing and bracing chill; the kiss of his breeze tickled her neck gently. He waltzed and twirled with her in their splendid choreography, their footsteps lighter than clouds and their souls higher than the moon that was their motley.

Her soul immediately locked with it, her heart instantly surrendered to it as her arms helplessly coiled around it in a desperate plea.

"_Please…whoever you are…take me with you._"

Song deafened her, love blinded her, ice made her fingers senseless, and desire made her lips speechless…

She was completely at his mercy with only one sense to defend her: love.

She felt her self being constricted in his grasp as her hand instinctively reached for something and show it back to him.

"_Take it…please_." She whispered.

Before she could get one last look at the velvet, the rose disappeared into the breeze.

Her feet suddenly lifted from the ground and she thought for a moment she was flying. She willingly gave into her airborne state and lolled her head back in comfort, music still singing its lullaby to her.

She was so drunk in melody that her mind ran without her permission and her lips followed suit.

It was so quiet she herself could hardly decipher it.

"_I love you._"

And for the first time in what seemed like years, she finally had a peaceful sleep, letting winter whisk her down into his nocturnal lair.


	18. Beautiful Bondage

**Author's Notice:** Hey-lo everybody! I missed you guys and I hope vice versa! My mind has been frazzled to the core lately with school having been started a week ago and anticipation of whether I made it on the volleyball team or not. We'll find out tommorow though! Well, so far my teachers seem nice and already trolls of new people I have met prove themselves a nice bunch. And I have a new crush who makes my heart a flutter. Is life wonderful? The bruises on my arms and my insomnia says different. Ah well. Anyways let me just say that I actually felt happy with this chapter at first then felt my inspiration and energy start to spiral out the window. If you guys reccommend it enough, I believe a rewrite of this chapter is likely since it took me a bit to actually sculp out the format of this chapter and still keep the context I want to establish in future chapters. That, however, is only if you guys think so. Nevertheless, enough of this pointless A/N you guys never read to just skip to the story. I do that too, haha.

But everybody reads bold. So I want to dedicate this chapter to one of my most loyal reviewers and good friend **Amunett **because I know she's been waiting for this chapter.

A thank-you to **IceCliff** who made my day by actually reading the story from first to last chap while being active enough to post chapters about them. Eager reviewers always help me be a more eager writer. A thanks to all who read and review as usual, and as always have a nice day. :)

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_Chapter Eighteen: Beautiful Bondage_

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Her chocolate eyes were greeted with sun-kissed light that flooded in her suddenly warm atmosphere as her body roused alert to the sweet feathery feel of herself cocooned in a unidentified velvet blanket. She didn't remember herself being tucked in. She also couldn't recall how exactly her veil was folded neatly at the foot of her bed. She rose from her laid position and felt her muscles for once not ache at the jeer of her usual insomnia but fresh and vibrant with unstilted energy and comfort. Suddenly, though, her brain began shifting fast as she saw something out of place of her surroundings and realized the light tone of her environment still enveloped her in a nightly lair.

Christine arched an eyebrow as she rose from this strange new kip she never recalled slumbering in before. As though she were living in one of Joseph Bouquet's famous tales, she felt her heart frolic when she saw some sort of shadow tower over her in an awesome manner. Its arms stretched over her as if to rape her; yet unmoving as though encased in an unseen block of ice, but through darkness she could not make out what it was. The only thing that peaked from its warm shadows was scalloped-shaped edges like that of a bird's feathers or an angel's wings, and somehow, her senses involuntarily relaxed. Slowly emerging from the silence of her wake melodies began once again to frolic in a sweet pitter-patter in her stage-like mind as they synchronized and harmonized in little ballerinas that twirled in her temples. Sugar-plumed sounds rippled in her memories more whimsical than the most prestigious or imaginative storyteller. Candied hurdy-gurdies, pianos, harps and the most succulent violins crippled into her welcoming ears and enchanted her throat as an unseen baton began to manipulate her voice.

She hummed in her musical bliss and rose on her feet to follow where such divine notes were being pawned. She hadn't realized she was still wearing her gown from before and was walking barefoot on familiar concrete floors.

Music had possessed her voice as she began to sing.

"_Sweet conductor_

_Let me be your baton_

_Wave me with love_

_My heart is your drome_."

The lair echoed while she held her last note. Never before had she ever created such lyrics and somehow suspected of on absented plagiarism from some god of music. Whichever the case, the song held her arms open as though she were waiting for someone to come.

To her horror, someone did.

His handsomely butchered claps arrived first in their timed syllables. _Clap_, one two three. _Clap_, one two three. His self followed after, decoding itself from a camouflage of shadow. He was wearing an angel-white tunic strapped under a black vest that was plastered securely on his flat anterior and jet-black pants that terminated at the beginning of his polished black shoes.

One thing was for certain; everything Erik touched was rejuvenated into new.

Her mind at that instant erased everything else. Her heart leapt and her feet helplessly followed suit. She forced patches of air into her empty lungs gasping for stolen breath as she galloped to her beloved teacher more relieved than she had been in years. She yelped a slur of her wordless yelps in exultance as she had her arms poised in front of her, trying to outrun what seemed like years of separation that threatened to defeat her.

Before she could hold her long lost mentor, he grabbed her outstretched wrists and held her at a half-arm's length distance, his eyes iced on hers. If shock hadn't blinded her so, she would've seen the smallest smile barley legible on his pale lips. Instinctively, she struggled against his grasp for a few brief moments before realizing her fault and obediently ceasing.

Green stared back at brown for eternities.

Ah, she could see that smile now; it frightened her.

"Bravo, my student." She thought she heard.

She swallowed and hoped this was a dream.

"P-Pardon?"

The way his tiny smile still kept staying for the moments he left her silent sent a shiver through her veins and felt her wrists become slightly more tightened.

"You now know."

She breathed in carefully.

"Monsieur?"

He pulled her in closer, his large hands still encased tightly around her tiny wrists and holding her forearms up against his chest. Her nose touched the mask that covered his and their eyelashes blinked in unison while their lips pouted only inches apart.

"You are mine."

His breath iced her follicles.

"My student, my devoted, my baton, my slave."

That last word paralyzed her as a drip echoed from his watery entrance.

"You have no where else to hide, no where else to run." He continued as he began to pace around her.

She kept uncomfortably still and dare not even let her eyes follow after him.

"When you sleep, I am in your dreams. When you sing, I am in your voice. When you dance, I am in your knees. When you run, I follow after. When you hide, I will find you…"

That's when he disappeared from her vision; seconds dragged on in the eerie silence as only the hum of the lair could be heard.

Suddenly as though he emerged from the thin air he sprung back into her vision and clasped her shoulders painfully by his strong and bony hands. He slammed her back into an adjacent wall and flared both his nostrils at her, his green eyes turning amber with fiery rage.

"And when you let yourself be romanced by that handsome two-legged pig whom you call a man, I _will_ find you."

His voice dripped with salivary brutality and uncharacteristically deadly venom; his very hands on her bare shoulders sizzled acidly on her defenseless flesh. Two-legged pig? Did he mean Arthur? Wait—how did he know about him? Did he spy on her? Could she never be free from the criticizing and judgmental eyes of another person? Must she always be under someone's thumb? Did she prove herself so worthless and helpless that she couldn't function in the privacy of herself that not even Erik could trust her to be alone?

No, she was through having other people try and run her emotions and own personal judgments. Who was he, a man who lived in a fancy box his entire miserable life to tell her how to go about the people she meets? In fact, who was _anyone_—even that crone Carlotta—to run the way she was meant to be? No one knew the true Christine beyond all who manipulated her to be.

Now seemed like a good time to start showing them. She would start here and she would start now.

Christine voluntarily relaxed under Erik's grasp and when she saw the way his eyes poked with discreet confusion she knew he felt it too.

She mimicked Erik's small and mysterious smile.

"No." She said sweetly.

Suddenly there was sweat that began to moist her covered shoulders.

Erik's eyes seemed almost sickly green under the limelight of his widened eyes.

Her bones cringed painfully from a regained tightness.

"_What was that?_"

Her smile grew wider, transiting from mysterious to sincere.

"I said no."

His pupils daggered hers, his mouth was hinged open slightly with an icy half-grit of his teeth.

"You will not have to find me."

No response, just more staring.

She continued. "I don't want you to go through the hassle, I _have_ a system and I _am_ capable; you won't have to find me—I will come to you."

Chilly seconds dragged before he finally licked his clammy lips cautiously and looked at her with perceiving and suspicious eyes.

"Explain yourself, pupil."

"I believe it is self-explanatory, my master." She replied just as icily as he. "I am your devoted student and loyal slave…"

A cold sweat began to bead on the back of his stiff neck as she shuffled closer into him, rising on her toes to meet their eyes at a slanted level.

Her lips barley tickled against his, cold breath feathered his nose. "But I believe it is time to realize there are two parts to any relationship. Student and teacher…"

Her arm rose up and guided her hand over to her chest; she laid down her palm over his upper anterior and lightly sharpened two fingers over his heart. He shivered in horror and amusement.

"…Or not." She concluded. "You are as linked to me as I am to you."

She saw his eyes constrict a bit at that last statement. His obedient little student was becoming a rebellious little brat so quickly? She dare return to his commands and even stir up the bravery to touch him? Who does this little ingénue think she is? However, one thing that was new that did not anger him was this sort of tempting glint in her eye, as was the flexibility of her slim eyebrows. Too proud to admit it, albeit, but he rarely contacted with other humans beside she—much less be able to interpret what that pointy arch of her eyebrow was supposed to signify. Something about the way she hooked that single eyebrow—not like the way she would look at him curiously as before—seemed older, stranger, more mature than any other look she had given him.

Who was this little wench to play with his mind? _He_ was the genius. His dazzling music, his infinite melodic knowledge and countless assets of other educated capabilities should perplex _her_.

Somehow, though, he was surprised that he had not scolded her for her sassiness yet. Somehow the way she was talking lately, the way her body had begun to gesture, even the very way she would look at things seemed more fluid and experienced. All what she did had nothing to do with purpose, it seemed the force had a mind of its own.

After the long cold minutes of silence and seldom-blinking stares, he finally cracked a knowing smile barley out of the edge of his cemented lips. He reached his gloved hand down to her two fingers still aimed at his perplexed heart and used his hand to pan out her own as his fingers laced between her slits.

Still hand-in-hand, the phantom leaned in closer to his student and half-lidded his eyes as he watched her down from his towering height, each being able to taste the breath of the other.

"My student is growing up."

She smiled inside; _he wants me again_, she thought as she wriggled her fingers between his slits with delight.

How she wanted to experiment all the things that have been bubbling in her heart, she knew that her need would have to come another day as his grandfather clock struck and chimed the tenth hour.

Her heart raced, but Erik held her hand firm as he showed a hand toward his gondola.

"Watch your step." Was all he said.

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She made her way through the mirror and smiled at Erik one last time as she closed the barrier between them. Another day, another day she would win her phantom. Not now, there will be a better time, she will make him need her. She saw the confusion and humor he gave her through his eyes, he wouldn't believe her, she would prove it true.

"My Erik, my phantom…" She sighed as she placed overlapping hands over her heart. She mouth hinged in defeat. "…My owner."

What about her owner? That hideous man behind the mask? That retched damned demon whose disfigurement still latches onto her heart every free second of her life? That dream-leech that feeds on her nightmares even in her sleep?

_What is happening to me?_ She thought as she stood in the dark wondering if somehow there was a piece in this puzzle that was missing…or was just simply not being into the right place.


	19. Fifteen Dust Sprinkles

**Author's Notice:** Hey everyone! It's good to be back! Gosh, what a school year its shaping out to be already! I say due to daily and schedual difficulties I apologize to all my readers and reviewers who have been waiting for the next chapter. For any who care: I am in my school's play and I get to play the Countess, a fat silly woman with a French accent. Funny? I think so. As always, I wish to thank all who read and reviewed my chapters and loyally wish you all a good day. :)

A special thanks again to the only reviewer I know who offers any true constructive critisism: **The Little Mademoiselle **(formally known as Jelinda.The.Good). Bless you dear, you make me happy.

**Katiebabs: **Thank you, love. I am glad you like my view on these characters. :)

As a side note, remember some terms I use are not always used in the context that comes firstly to your mind, I use a lot of British slang in this fic as well as technical. Just a reminder. Hope you guys are able to catch the little foreshadowing bits I wrote at the end. Can you guess what event happened in this chapter?

Enjoy.

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_Chapter Nineteen: Fifteen Dust Sprinkles_

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The darkness that veiled her room blinded the befuddled ballerina with only the moon bleeding through her window and shining on her nightstand clock.

Eleven forty-five. Only fifteen minutes left.

She thought of Erik and held the roses she took with her before she left his lair in her protective care. The rose's blossom-sweet honeyed aroma were like nectar to her hummingbird-like nostrils, they were velvet underneath her calloused hands and a relief to all things rough she had gotten used to lately.

Air fluttered in her lungs in dreadfully excited pangs. That's when it hit her. Back there, was that she who was speaking? Was all that she did a dream? Erik could've slapped her for her back talk or at least wham her with an intimidating lecture on respect as he had done rare times before. Why didn't he discipline her? Why did she open her mouth?

She rubbed her arm from the cold rush that chilled her veins. Realizing the delusive and fanciful manner both their attitudes were, she concluded her mind was probably just toying with her again. She could've dreamt it all and just awoke somewhere out of her memory and ended up leaning back-faced against her mirror in the dead of night.

Except there was evidence: she held only two white roses in her crossed arms.

She shook her head and felt around for her nightstand to lay her sweet possessions on. When she did, she felt she should just merely undress and go to sleep through the midnight hour. Who would know anyways? Who would care? It's just another night.

She fiddled with her dress while trying to undo it and while she began slipping the dress from her feet she lost balance and tumbled onto the floor on her side. Normally, with the carpeted flooring and her usually spotless dorm the fall would be cushioned and harmless…

However, an immediate pierce in her arm and cuff of her hand said otherwise.

Or more accurately, screamed otherwise.

What this was that stabbed her, it was no petty shard or crystal, no, this was something much more unnatural.

Instantly, her mouth shot open and a deafening scream screeched in blotched curdles throughout what could've been argued as the entire opera house. What was that that was beginning to ooze over the pain? Whatever it was, the more it dribbled, the more she screamed.

Even to her, the scream sounded like death that thudded in booming sprints from her dorm and reflecting back.

She compressed her eyes so tightly that the pressure was beginning to burn in bright colors behind her crumpled eyelids.

The pain was so fiery, so wrathful and hateful as though she committed the worst of sins that she couldn't even hear her door swing open letting whoever opened it to be met with the half-naked chorus girl on the floor.

In the corner of her ears, she could hear hasty crackling of some abused object approach her.

Only when she stopped her tenacious screaming to regain lost breath could she hear her name expressed in bloodied panic.

"Christine!"

In the midst of al her agony, she in hasty frustration tried to scoop some clothing on her bared breasts while trying in daggered yelps to crumple away from the arms that were beginning to heave her up.

"No—don't—ah! —look!"

He struggled against her trying to keep her in his coiled arms—that's when he felt it; the scrap of glass that was plowed halfway deep in her thin arm.

"_Mon Dieu!_" He shouted not even needing to see the source of her pain to know how serious it was.

To take it out and ease her pain a bit more, he needed her still.

"Christine! Christine! No—look at me!" He ordered, using a free hand to grasp her jaw. The pain forced her body to resist his grip and squirm all the more.

He knew he couldn't still her so he had to be brutal.

He turned her over and threw her on her bed as her sticky residue smeared on his skin. He pressed her arms down to her mattress in between pleas for her to hold still. He couldn't blame her for her disobedience, but that wouldn't make this job any easier.

"I'm—sorry." Arthur grunted as he took hold of the piece that stuck from her arm and with a last second of sympathy, yanked the object in question from its wronged sheath.

His eardrums almost popped when that final scream was amplified and bled like metal all through the crevices of his brain.

Finally, after many more moments of screams and grunts and moans on her part did she finally cease with a hiccupping finish.

Arthur out of pain and sympathy for the girl gently laid his hand the softest he could on the skin above the wound and hushed her gently and lovingly until her groans of pain reduced to high-pitched hisses.

Arthur looked at the girl and felt a wrench in his stomach, something cold and icy whipping up and down his systems like a distempered boomerang. Her porcelain cheeks almost as white as snow was flushed with pain and unbeknownst to him—humiliation as well as her clay-soft skin turned stale and rigid with tears and blood. The upper portion of his slender arm became a crimson crater almost as deep and as black as the pupils that gazed upon them.

He shuddered when he saw her small, immature breasts poke out from her unraveled dress both scratched and erect with cold and residue. Sincerely he took the sheet and covered her torso with only the smallest and closest thing to a paternal smile he ever managed.

The growing silence helped his ears twitch when they caught up on occasional intakes of breath and helped his senses become more aware of the weight of stares on his back. He turned his head slightly over and saw chorus girls, frightened, dumfounded, shocked, coldly apathetic standing in the doorway. Meg stood in the front.

"Arthur—?"

He felt it was insulting for his precious student to be exposed like this and have these gossip-starved vultures of sociality perch on their twigs of legs. He loathed the way they were observing her scrap of meat as though she were too revolting to consume, too fascinating to abandon.

He nudged his body further to the side, blocking their prey from view and tried to keep his voice civil.

"Go get the nurse, and tell her to bring all she has."

No steps, not a scurry of hurrying feet or even a sympathetic shift of footing, just stale and lifeless kips.

He impatiently swallowed and tried once more letting the constriction of his tone become a little more noticeable.

"I _said_ go get the nurse, now."

The chorus girls became paralyzed with the scene with the exception of Meg who sprinted away wisely in the face of unknown tempers.

This rekindled his patience slightly as a heated phantom watched hatefully behind the mirror, still mentally insulting himself for not having rowed faster to his student's cries.

* * *

Christine's eyes peaked a slit of awakening, feeling her body somehow feeling much more heavier than ever before. Her entire skin felt as thick as leather and as swollen as a drunken Evie's flushed cheeks all burning in some hot and snug plastic wrap that she realized were her clothes. 

Judging by the periwinkle shade that seeped through her window, it must've been early morning. She tried to strengthen up and take in her situation but suddenly felt a yank on the left side of her body as though she were captured by a fisherman's possessive hook.

The "hook" made its sharpest pierce on her arm and gasped softly when she saw tinted white linen wrapped around the upper part.

That's when it came walloping back to her, the fall, the cut, the pain…and somebody else. She instinctively clutched a gentle hand around over the linen and inhaled carefully as though if breathing too much under her condition would shorten its good supply.

Curiosity hefted up her eyes and strained to see through the semi-darkness any marks of the perpetrator who committed this crime. Her carpet was clean but her personal belongings on her dresser were left untouched in their positions.

She examined and reabsorbed her settings multiple times before the plea of her heavy eyelids began to coax her return to sleep. As she was complying, something out of place jerked her eyes wide open. The most important part.

The portrait of Gustave Daae was missing from its usual place at the corner of her dresser.

Her head whizzed more quickly around the room in search for the portrait but it was not in sight.

Feeling heavy breath beginning to huff in and out of her thin lungs she tried to get up from her but only resulted in a yelp of pain. In humiliating defeat, she retreated back to her bed.

Moments later did a quiet Meg step into her dorm, steps careful and tedious and almost uncomfortable. She placed a tray of water on the empty nightstand and smiled unnaturally to her nominal friend.

Christine, whether out of spite or exhaustion failed to return said gesture and stare only intensively at the somehow different girl. She seemed almost ashamed of something.

As she turned, Christine didn't want to let her go.

"Meg?" She heard a voice raspier and more labored than her normal say.

She looked at the floor quietly before answering shyly. "Yes?"

Christine took a few moments to prolong the awkwardness, a small revenge she could only muster at the handicapped moment.

"Where's the portrait of my father?" She said finally.

Meg was the first to look away.

A few seconds. "Meg." She said, not asking.

"What?"

"Where is it?"

Nothing.

"I am not asking anymore, where is it?"

Meg slouched in guilty apathy and finally turned towards her.

"Drink your water and then go to bed. When you wake up, I'll escort you to Arthur's office later."

"No, I want it now." She retorted flatly, not even allowing the admittance of Arthur into their subject distract her.

But Meg didn't seem to hear as she closed the door behind her.

Christine cursed at her silently but grunted in frustration when she failed to get up and go after her. With a little fire in her heart, she was forced to lay back down and try to sleep.

The glass on the tray sat there as its smooth and undisturbed surface began to feather with dust in the silent and indifferent morning.

Another year, another sprinkle.


	20. Dirty Work

**Author's Notice:** Hello again everybody, once again I apolgize for the prolonged update but school prioritizes itself before you all, I am afraid. ;) Anyways, here is a warning to all the readers who are going to read this chapter--actually, more of a plea: do NOT hurt me is all I'll say. Any questiosn you guys have regarding this chapter or the characters and their behaviors will all be answered in the next chapter, but I promise you this chapter is pure gold, it holds a lot of material that will affect the major climax of the story. Anyways, I made this chapter extra long as a token of my apologies. As always, thanks to all who read and reviewed and a reminder that constructive criticsm is always welcomed.

Have a nice day. :)

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* * *

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_Chapter Twenty: Dirty Work _

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* * *

_

He stood there watching her as she slept her suffocated slumber as the heat of insecurity left her face flushed and confused and her big eyes that always glossed with wonder crumpled in desperation. Her thin white sheets draped in obedience to her developing figure, they would rise in shy peaks at her perky breasts and then swallow in on her slim waist until they finally flowed to a flowery termination at the ends of her long and clumsy legs. Her curly hair draped over her smooth and almost rectangular forehead as it flourished wildly in its free pour over her white pillow. Her loosened wardrobe from the night before bagged under her exposed shoulder and revealed a timid breast with a blush as florescent as her swollen face.

He stood there watching her as she slept her suffocated slumber as the heat of insecurity left her face flushed and confused and her big eyes that always glossed with wonder crumpled in desperation. Her thin white sheets draped in obedience to her developing figure, they would rise in shy peaks at her perky breasts and then swallow in on her slim waist until they finally flowed to a flowery termination at the ends of her long and clumsy legs. Her curly hair draped over her smooth and almost rectangular forehead as it flourished wildly in its free pour over her white pillow. Her loosened wardrobe from the night before bagged under her exposed shoulder and revealed a timid breast with a blush as florescent as her swollen face. 

He looked over to her nightstand to see the water he sent Meg to deliver sat untouched and abandoned on the tray that went from its almond-brown shine to a beige glaze in the fainthearted sun.

It was still so early, he thought, but he believed it would be best not to further prolong any torments this girl may have already gone through.

With a small, illegible smile he approached her with watery and gliding steps and looked down at her curled form. His breath sucked in instinctively but quietly when she moved only to turn her back to him. He exhaled and he made a curious seat at the foot of her bed, never taking his observing blue eyes off of her. He finally allowed his eyes to descend from her face and follow the deceiving small of her back down to her bum. Not so plumped and ripe yet not so flat and uninteresting. He knew and saw her pale cheeks, skinny and shapeless arms, knobby knees and tight hands and accepted all of her plain and sometimes insufficient beauty. She didn't bathe in color like Wettlingham or eccentrically boast of her curvaceous figure like bouncy Giry. She was so plain, so normal, so easy to ignore…

He reached a hand over carefully and curiously as though what he was about to touch would whip and out strike him in surprise. He laid his large and veined hand flatly and ponderously on her rear and absorbed the feel of it with quiet and fastidious senses.

_She was so plain._

When something icy but somehow—clean rose in his system he grasped her flesh a little more in more speculation.

_So normal._

Suddenly a breath shot out gently and the body he felt began to resume its turning cycle, but only this time two slits of brown confused eyes followed its pursuit. A single lock of hair still latched onto her face as she looked up, and somehow the red of her flush made the sparkle of those insecure and pleading eyes latch something else onto his heart.

_So easy to ignore._

The sparkles in her eyes twinkled like the ticking of sorrowful chimes.

"Arthur?"

She didn't gasp when she said this name but stated it in an almost expected yet wondrous tone, as though something you knew would be there but still amazes you that it is.

When she tried to lift herself up from the mattress, her efforts were met with a pained grunt and that forced her back down. Her eyes shut in desperation of her disability.

"My God, what's happened?" She hissed to more herself than he.

He moved his hand shyly over to the cut of her upper thigh and kept a firm hold there. She knew this. However, there was nothing wrong in the way his hand against her felt, it felt warm and firm—stable—and suddenly she didn't need to ask anymore questions.

He locked eyes with her. Those tenacious and consuming eyes that arched in attractive seriousness became fixed on her patient and waiting brown.

"Come on," He told her as he subtly nudged his chin towards the door. "get up, you're coming with me."

The way her eyes stared at him observantly and slightly suspiciously made him give her a hint of a smile as he spotted that peeping breast that poked towards him. She followed his eyes and her own widened silently as her cheeks turned from a red of discomfort to one of modesty but still did not move.

He patted her thigh tenderly before he rose up from the bed and walked over to its head. Her eyes followed his every move as he sent his arms to dig under her back and heave her up gently.

As she retied the bagginess of her gown, she took his supporting hand, not knowing where he'd take her, not caring.

* * *

She entered his office that was actually his own personal dorm only equipped with a messed desk, a plain dresser, a wooden cabinet and a low-rise bed that all were confiscated behind a curtained glass-door window that led into a private balcony. 

Knowing she didn't have any disadvantages in her legs, Arthur let go of her hand and gestured her to his bed.

"Sit down, Christine."

She complied and looked at her teacher with eyes that stressed a burning question.

"Arthur, what happened? Why did Meg tell me earlier I should come here? Why didn't she come back to take me here? Where's my father's portrait?"

The last question made her feel silly to ask him of, like he would know what that portrait meant to her.

Arthur smiled at her mysteriously as he shut the door still looking at her and didn't answer anything until he joined her in his bed.

When he sat, he took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him, and then with tender but gingerly hands he touched the upper of her left arm where the linen was. She flinched for subtextual reasons.

"This," He said. "Was caused by a particularly jagged and large piece of glass that was inflicted into you for reasons I do not know."

She knew. "I fell." She whispered.

He nodded. "That piece, my dear, was merely one of many that resulted from a breaking of a portrait I believe is the one you're—"

That's all she needed to hear, now she knew that the portrait was destroyed and suddenly the pain in her arm was put aside by her rapid breathing, horror leaking out in each huff.

"No!" She moaned in hurt. That was all she had, all that was left of her father was that portrait. Now all that happened to her came crashing down back in her memory like a rekindled train: the torment, the bullying, the humiliation, the fall, the face, the enslavement—everything.

She whined in desperation and misery in her chest, her eyes were beginning to resume their gloss from the theft of all that was dear to her. Why? Why was that portrait robbed from her? What did it mean to anyone else?

Arthur took a stronger hold on her and she saw the concern in his worried eyes.

"Christine? What's wrong?"

She just kept her lip bit and tried to hide the leak of her tightened eyes.

"Christine?" He repeated, holding her tighter. "Answer me!"

She forced with all her power not to cry as she finally responded with a croak in her voice. "May I please be excused?"

This request confused the teacher but did not distract him from his objective.

"No. I won't let you go till you look at me and tell me what's wrong."

She hissed in desperation. "Arthur please!"

He tried to make sense out of her radical behavior; he knew forcing her would only make her resist him more, so he tried to calm her down.

"Christine look," He said as he sent a hand into his pocket. "I saved the portrait for you, you can have it reframed and it'll be as good as new."

She saw him put the folded portrait under her nose showing it to her the same way you would show an elder their food when they're nearsighted.

It's not the same she realized and whined quietly to herself knowing there was nothing else her teacher could help her do.

She stiffly with a dent in her chest thanked him for his kindness and tried to get back up on her feet to leave when he placed his large hands on her shoulders, holding her down.

"Christine," He breathed patiently. "You can trust me with anything, what else is wrong?"

She looked down a bit in silent desperation and finally exhaled in defeat to his manipulative yet persuasive pleas.

"It is true I can reframe it," She responded with hurt. "but the reason why this pains me so is because that frame bore a signature to me. My father crafted that frame special for me…"for my little lotte, with whom my heart lies". It's one of the last few things I had left of him."

Arthur immediately sympathized for the teenager who longed for the father who was now eight years dead. He remembered the day on their date who she expressed his very name with love and sorrow and knew the meaning behind her nickname.

She was his angelfish, a play of names when they lived by some forgotten sea.

He smiled a pained smile at her and without being able to stop himself first he took her in his arms and pressed her firmly into his overpowering chest.

She took in a sharp breath from shock but when her loneliness bit at her she abandoned all caution and coiled her thin arms around his neck.

"Oh, my student." He whispered. "You are more precious than I'll ever know."

Somehow in the way his embrace tightened at the last part told her perhaps he wasn't so distanced from discovering.

* * *

Christine rubbed her arm tenderly and gratefully when the stingy pain of her cut became more tolerable during her rehearsals. Sweat glazed her forehead and neck from another long day of practice, Carlotta having put them through some of the most complicated ballets she ever tempered with. 

At the start of the rehearsal she actually found herself disappointed when Arthur didn't make himself attended and Carlotta instead standing there with her usual needled smirk. She barked "constructive criticism" at every given moment, making each flaw magnified and explosive. Somehow, Christine noticed she was in a good mood today: she only humiliated her twice, once a slap to her forehead, another a stab in her chest by Carlotta's daggered nails.

Her vocabulary towards her softened as well: only "invalid toad" and "retched floozy" seemed appropriate for the day.

Christine wondered what had in her such a rare mood, what made her possibly smile her ugly smirks even more bountifully that always seemed to vanish when they would make eye contact.

Oh! There went another one! Carlotta's unreachable smirk flew away from her lips once more and was replaced with a comfortable scowl.

"Where do you think you're all going?" She barked to the departing and exhausted dancers. "Get back over here before I'll use your precious night for a repeated course of this lesson. Hurry up! Hurry up!"

In fear all the ballerinas jogged with their little strength back to their merciless instructress and kept themselves standing with only their willpower to posture them up.

"My God it stinks like shit here." She coughed to herself as she fanned a flapping hand to herself. "Anyways, I'll have you all know that our next opera will now be in the casting process over the next week. For the role of Count Desmond LeEros, my fiancé will play. And for the leading lady role of Rochelle Dolores, I appoint myself." She concluded proudly.

"Actually, my love, I'm afraid the leading role you cannot play."

Carlotta's reptilian eyes immediately sharpened at the objection and with a tiny flare in her eyes she turned around only to loosen her scowl at the sight of Arthur.

Christine's eyes also perked at the sight of the teacher she hadn't seen since the earlier morning and curiosity perked along with it. Why hadn't he been here during this rehearsal? Why did he have an objection to his fiancé playing his opposing love role?

"But, _mi amore_! I am only capable of this role; no one can sing this part as well as master the advanced dance steps!" She protested in pretend-modesty.

"Perhaps so, _mon ange_, but it's the role of the instructress or opera choreographer to monitor the dances of her students and compose all the elements of their work. There is no possible time for such a dedicated, hard-working mademoiselle like yourself to balance yourself before the curtains as well as behind them."

Carlotta quietly grunted to herself as she heard her bridegroom state the very truth that she knew one else could possibly know besides he and she, now he has allowed all to know. Somehow her adoration of him at the moment diminished handsomely.

"I wouldn't want to see your luscious face tether from such overwhelming work…"He said as he approached her and took hold of her doughy hands. "Such flawless hands shouldn't have to dirty themselves with such labored work."

Oh, he was good.

His compliments always tickled her heart and sent nasal giggles through her rectangular mouth, but she wouldn't let him get away with that so easily as she wriggled her sausage-like fingers under his smiling mouth.

"I know, my love, but even so there is no one else who can possibly balance such a complex part."

He kept smiling as he closed his eyes in a flowing crook of his neck. "You have some very gifted students, I should know…"

An uneasy hiatus in his statement hung in the air as Christine cringed a bit in jealousy and discomfort.

"…I am sure they can relieve you of such—dirty work."

Carlotta couldn't resist a smile that stretched longer than her snake-like eyes when he kissed her meaty fingers as he stared at her with those wheedling, tempting eyes.

But deep inside, she still grunted in defeat. "Well, we shall see over the course of this week, my love."

When she turned away from to dismiss her students, her smile became suffocated and her eyes tethered. "…But this is, after all, a mere chorus, none of these voices should really be taken seriously."

* * *

"Ms. Daae, please report to my office." Arthur called through the slit on the door. 

Her eyes grew in curiosity as her body grew tense behind the shield of her dorm door. "Monsieur?"

He nodded in meaning of what he said. "I want to see you in my office in no later than ten minutes, I have something that may concern you."

She took a few seconds to let the unexpected order sink in her thin skin before she nodded obediently. "Yes, sir."

He nodded again before he turned on his heel and left gracefully. Why he came to her dorm at this time of night, she didn't know, only that his words coiled her veins. "Something that may concern her", what was that supposed to mean? The question kept bubbling in her head in degradation, what more could possibly have happened to add on to her never-ending stock of woes?

She couldn't contain her haste to find out what was so important, so she only tied a white robe around her white corset and hurried down the hall into Arthur's dorm where the door was already unlocked.

Inside, Arthur was writing on some parchment nonchalantly, the light of his lamp dyed the bangs of his draping almond hair into golden fleece.

She cautiously pushed the door a little wider, both anticipation and adrenaline clouding her heart. "A-Arthur?"

His quill immediately snapped from the paper he wrote on as his head rose to see her in his doorway. He didn't smile, but his face was gentle and kind.

"Ah, Christine, come in, my dear, come in." He welcomed as he replaced his quill back into its inkbottle. "Please, take a seat."

She assumed the seat she had earlier that morning on his bed and kept his posture tight and upright. The chill of the winter breeze that blew from the large window danced his curtains and flickered the light of his lamp. He joined her on his bed.

"What do you have that concerns me?" She asked first.

"So quick to get to the point, Ms. Daae?" He teased with a small smile. "Well, what you seek, I do have…"

She breathed a bit in relief when she thought he wouldn't badger her patience like he had become so comfortable of doing, but then tensed when he abruptly turned back to her.

"But you must promise me not to open your eyes right now." He told her.

Her lip poked out in curiosity before he took two of his gentle fingers and pressed them down softly on her eyelids. The last snippet she could see was that flirtatious smirk.

She waited patiently behind her closed eyes as she heard something being taken out.

"Alright, now you can open them."

When color reentered into her sight, her breath departed in exchange, for there before her Arthur held the precious turquoise sea-wood frame, perfectly reassembled almost as wondrous as the many years ago it was first presented to her.

The expression-lines on her forehead bunched together in their tight surprise. "Arthur! How did you—?"

"Your father wasn't the only craftsman, my dear." He told her proudly as he placed the frame into her trembling hands.

This couldn't be true, this had to be a replica, something that was not the original frame her father made. She turned to the back for evidence, and that was when she rested her case.

The handwriting of his letters, unmistakably stood etched into the sea-wood, and the message was still written undeniably in its precious words.

"_For my Little Lotte, with whom my heart lies_." She read as though she read the letters for the first time. She quivered with love and rapture. "Oh Arthur!"

Before he could react, she latched tight arms around his neck and pressed him into gratitude and loneliness. Arthur after hesitation embraced her back with almost as much power, and somewhere during their embrace, his weight dominated hers and she fell back into his bed with he following after onto her.

The impact of the circumstance shook them both back into reality and awkwardness, and iced both of them into each other's confused eyes.

Another gust of wind chilled the atmosphere, this time more powerful than before, powerful enough to whip the only light into banishment as well as shut the dorm door into a secure close.

This paralyzed her under his body as well as froze him on top of hers. Bewilderment and confusion both possessed the staled teacher and student in suspended animation.

When the world seemed to resume back into its rotation, sins twirled after.

Arthur slowly with his eyes locked onto Christine's descended his head down and feathered his lips on the crook of her neck. It was the most softest, gentlest, sinned, and vile kiss she ever felt.

She raised her head just as nervously and kissed the flesh of his tough cheek as he closed his eyes in guilty admittance.

The posture of her long neck bagged the cut of her robe as it sagged off her shoulder to reveal her sole corset and attached gown.

Arthur took this in his mind as he looked back at his precious student one last time, as the way they were innocently before, and with one last tremble of fear, plunged into fate taking the robe down with him.

Slowly, almost as paced as the very breeze that iced them both together, Arthur disrobed his student. With careful pecks, he bloomed his lips again and again all over her neck and shoulders and she returned to him hesitantly kisses on his jaw and cheeks.

This is so wrong in so many ways, she thought with a weight in her stomach as Arthur kissed the tops of her breasts.

She clenched his head to her chest at the thought of the consequences she knew would come.


	21. Fresh Air

**Author's Notice: **Yes, the lack of updating, I know. Yes, school is a bitch, I know. Yes, this chapter maybe be confusing, I know. You're weird, I'm weird, so do the lord a favor a just read the chapter. But I am, however, a woman of my word and will NOT abandon this story because I actually love writing it. Anyways, I know I took a risk writing the last chapter, but I want all my readers to know that I did NOT have Christine lose her virginity to Arthur. I hope this chapter will help you all understand _my_ version of Christine Daae a bit better and familiarize yourselves with an emotionally and physcological insecure teenager with desires and feelings instead of the open-mouthed beauty we have all programmed ourselves to expect. Most importantly with this chapter I hope you can catch my metaphors and subtextual meanings that pretain to the concept of the ths story and title. Anyways, writing this chapter was a challenge and I personally liked it. Let me know how you feel, though and drop me a review. :)

Have a nice day.

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_Chapter Twenty-One: Fresh Air

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Christine laid on her bed and closed her eyes in unison with a sigh. Something was wrong, perhaps she was becoming ill or she simply didn't have enough sleep—whatever the case, it's discomfort piled irrevocably on her flat chest.

Thoughts of the past hours bubbled in her exhausted temples in wild rushes, everything was going way too fast that time had left her youth behind in psychological dust. Suddenly, that chilly, spacious, carefree, ingenuous lift that she never even knew existed before had evaporated from her wearied lungs and left her in a suffocated and heatedly smothering atmosphere.

Her mind rewound her projector of memories from the start of the prior night to the end of her rehearsal session fifteen minutes ago.

She saw through closed eyelids again how Arthur's guilty blue eyes turned almost white in the moonlight as the pale illumination danced and transformed again and again to adapt to his heaving, curly body. She remembered the ice-hot sting of his touch puncture every pore of her skin and felt his inanimate lips reapply themselves to her neck and breasts.

She instinctively grasped a breast immediately and felt its texture different from before. It was her same breast from before, but it was not.

Her eyebrows gradually came together inwards as the reviewed night replayed clearly in her head. The robe that never came off, only pulled down to reveal her breasts, would be one she could never wear again. She would never be able to sleep in another bed without thinking of _him_, touching her, kissing her, _controlling_ her.

She clenched her sheets when she recalled one how the suction of his mouthy folds felt against her helpless collar.

She gasped when her memory-counterpart did before it rose from the bed to tell Arthur how she needed to leave immediately and hurried without another word through his door.

She recounted how during rehearsals her lover did show up and paced around her and her practicing peers, but even when he was not present in her peripheral vision she could still feel him bearing his stare from behind. As she pranced and frolicked on her cues and in rhythm to Carlotta's orders, she watched him from the corner of her eye looking right back at her silently—not with eyes thrilled of chase—but now eyes with expectance and patience for when she'd return to him again.

She felt like a helpless hare ensnared in the fox's mouth.

She felt while she was dancing as though somehow through paranormal abilities her chorus-mates unconsciously knew of her filth. Maybe they were observing her as well, as the girl who bathed in soil, who muddied her body and soul and greased her mind and spirit.

She just felt so _dirty_.

She tried to close her eyes and attempted to sleep, wake up, or breathe again, even existing seemed at the moment like a task too great to withstand with her kind of energy.

She twisted and turned in her boiling-hot sheets for what seemed like years, kicking off her shoes and yanking off her clothes until all that remained were her underclothes. It seemed as though fire licked at her feet and heat toasted her lungs as she grasped and yanked at her hair in desperation. She needed relief, she needed water, she needed to cool down and escape these fires that consumed her like flesh-starved hounds…

Hell was swallowing her up. She needed to get away.

Christine sprung from her bed with her cheeks flustered with confusion, _where was she?_ Things began to encircle around her like the gowns of her chorus-mates—_who were they?_ Everything unraveled like a mistreated doll—_yes, I'd like to be one, with their subliminal smiles and giddy limbs._

She giggled inwardly.

She found her helplessness rather funny, as though she was her own audience outside of her body watching this thin, ugly corpse peel away all layers of sanity in her ridiculous posture—_aha! look at that stupid grin! I suppose if I were that ugly I'd laugh too!_

The audience giggled at the retarded idiot, wheeling around the dorm like a drunken bee, bussing some funny kind of growl in her chest.

The betwixt Christine stumbled towards the full-length mirror and hastily pushed at it, as though there wasn't much time left, while the other Christine kept laughing all the way.

She scratched her way between the opening when one was finally made and squealed in delight when she trudged into black water. She needed to hurry. _Ha! This water tickles!_

She allowed the searing pain of magnetism pull her crumpling body through the shallow water and lead her ultimately into a certain lair.

* * *

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" She slurred as she climbed up the slope from the waters.

Erik's confused green eyes shimmered with shock and concern; he paced up to her after he rowed his lake-barrier back down.

Her white underclothes were plastered onto her thin frame and everything beneath became translucent as Erik blushed at the sight of her.

"Christine, what's the matter with you?" He asked as a distraction.

Her reaction to that question actually frightened him: in a flash, her mouth smirked, frowned, and smirked again whilst her eyes twinkled with mischief and malice.

The crazed student's smooth lips stretched slowly and mysteriously into beautiful simper as she waltzed up to her teacher. Erik's muscles instinctively froze in his standing position, wondering in what all nine hells was happening to Christine.

She glided her tiny feet fluidly around him and felt delicious power enrich her poisoned intestines. As she paced around her baffled teacher, his green eyes began to turn blue; his darkwood brown hair hazed into hazelnut tufts, the mask began to disappear…

And his name became "Arthur".

Her smile almost became vicious with hunger when she felt Erik shiver slightly as her fingers grazed across his chest. She circled around him until she was directly behind him.

Erik fought hard to keep still around his student, but every hair on his body, every sense of his systems was completely on a rigid tundra. She was winning, at that moment everything his very existence was balanced on rested at the tips of her burning fingers.

She was swallowing every drop of his weakness, inhaling every scent of his fear, and loving every second of his trauma. He swallowed. Hard.

She took her diabolic hands and entangled them upwards until they grasped the tough part of his neck. He gave a fantastic shiver. She smiled more venomously as she leaned on her tiptoes over to meet her lips with his ear.

"What's wrong, my master?" She purred.

She could feel the thumps of his heart when she sent one hand down to slither across his chest.

"Don't I belong to you?" She flouted in bittersweet adoration.

Erik felt his knees gain weight when he took in the smell of her citrus-wine hair.

"Just let go for one night, there's no one here, my teacher. Just allow me, for one beautiful night, teach _you_ what I know."

Erik couldn't take it anymore, everything was spinning furiously and she was growing way too fast.

He gasped when she sunk her plump lips into his collar.

"_You're insane_." He hissed in ecstasy.

The response both outraged and satisfied her as she turned him around to face her.

"And _you're_ mine." She growled.

She seized his throat in more deadly kisses whilst he stroke back at her during the enlacement of his arms around her wet form.

She kissed him more passionately and competitively, sinking her fingernails into his upper back. Her power over him was blinding, intense and downright demonic to the point of arrogance. She began to gloat to him, as though she were saying it to _Arthur's_ face:

"I..told you I'd come…back." She snickered between kisses. "I'd…find _you_."

He moaned in a growl.

"Since when…have you…shifted your desires and accepted…what was there?"

She stop kissing instantly because at that horrible moment he bowed his head and sucked on the flesh at the top of her breast. She didn't win; in fact, she was only expected and waited on this whole time like Arthur had done.

She gasped at the sucking, but not a gasp in pleasure, and the difference was obvious here.

Erik immediately stopped. "Christine?"

She wriggled her way out his arms, breathing heavily and adrenaline rising in pure panic.

"Erik, please ask me not, but take me back to my dorm. I must do something."

After a confused Erik rowed his raffled student back to her dorm, unsuccessfully asking her of her intentions all the way, Christine busted into her dorm and raced towards her window and opened all air in.

The icy winter-breeze froze her lungs in wondrous frost. _So beautiful_. Power was ambrosia.

She leaned over the railing and threw up.


	22. Unfinished Buisness

**Author's Notice: **Happy Thanksgiving! Here a little something extra to go with that Turkey! I am thankful for all you my readers and reviewers! Anyways, please try to understand this chapter because I actually like the atmosphere of this one. Also remember that one character may seem particularily mysterious, but it will make sense soon. Here are some details you will see again in later chapters, and once more I hope you guys can grasp my Christine's advanced yet innocent mentality. Nevertheless, constructive critism is always welcomed and have a nice day. :)

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_Chapter Twenty-Two: Unfinished Buisness

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_

She shook her head many times as though to rattle out this horrific nausea that pierced through her brain, but no use. She was diseased.

She leaned over her railing, trembling, hiccupping, wondering what the hell to do now.

She was seduced by her teacher and had seduced another twice, and for that she knew she would never be able to sleep cleanly again. Erik was so innocent, so naïve, and yet Arthur was much more experienced with better ignition of her sexual sparks.

She stared out her window with icy tears flowing down her face and covered her eyes with a thin hand. If her father had seen her now—anyone—they would know of her filthy positions: Arthur's mistress, Erik's wench.

Things were just downright out of control. She needed to leave, now. Without further evaluation of her situation, she hastily balled a handful of gowns, slips and the little money she had in her possession and fled when the clock struck midnight. Away from her lover, away from her master, away from her fate.

She calculated with silent feet the passing of the custodians during their cleaning shifts and escaped out the side entrance with only a mere low creak of the hinges as her trace.

The late Paris night was icy with winter and inactivity; Christine could only rely on moonlight and instinct to guide her way through the frightening light. As she hurried through the cold, wet and deserted streets with a thin cloak around her frame and veil covering her head and lower face, she wondered where to go now.

Her heart jumped at every rustling of leaves, her knees jiggled at every drop of dew, suspecting that someone may come up and attack her in the same way Madame Giry used to say.

_Madame Giry! That was it!_ She will go to the sewing factory and labor beside her former instructress, she did not care how bad the labor and hours would be as long as she away from them with someone she could trust.

She only knew of one sewing factory that was actually a bit of distance away from where she was, but luck struck again when she heard her francs jingle in her duffel bag that held all her belongings. She would take a train and head directly to the factory and would never have to be seen or seduced from again. A little spark of hope flashed in her heart as she hurried down the road that would take her to the train station.

Every shop that she passed was dark and unresponsive; the air was dark blue and thick with fog. Somehow, the icy feeling restored that feeling of weightlessness she found herself missing for so long and for once she felt young again, free, like a bird.

Then she spotted something illuminated down the street; some sort of light so beautiful and hypnotic that drew her towards its source from her path in the street. To her surprise it was a shop, and through the nearly blinding light she saw a figure turn dark against the luminescent background.

Without better judgment, the mesmerized maiden came up to the shop and stood from a safe distance. If she weren't so drawn by this otherworldly light, she would have recognized the shopkeeper.

"Come here to buy some more flowers, love?" The figure called out with a friendly laugh. "Shouldn't little girls be in bed by this time?"

Her heart lifted with wonderful surprise. "Edward!"

She hurried with a little jog in her step to see Edward's dark figure melt away and bear those friendly blue eyes that became fluorescent between the dramatizations of his lights.

"Boy! Look at this one!" He laughed when she hugged his tough arm. "I only met her once and now she loves me!"

She laughed too. She found it a bit weird that she hugged a stranger and now they act as though they've known each other for years, but at the moment it really didn't matter for she now felt safe. Somehow, she felt she could trust Edward.

He wore the same apron and brown slacks he did when they first met, it surprised her that he had no coat or anything in this sort of weather, but when he held her tiny hand in a nearly protective way she felt the warmth radiate from his palm.

"Ah, it's good to see a friendly face at this time of night." He said as he sweetly tapped the top of her hand. "But what's a little dove like yourself doing at this hour by your lonesome?"

She was smiling up until then, and then turned away from him. That was her mistake.

"A Duffel?" He asked more to himself when he saw the bag slung over her back. "Oh no, no, whatever you're doing, go back where you came from dear, it's not safe here."

She turned and faced him. "It's not safe for me anywhere, Edward."

His eyes grew a bit. "What? Why?"

She sighed and decided not to even bother resisting anymore. "I'm running away."

He looked patient as he nodded for her to continue.

"I must catch a train in order to leave the city so I could leave behind me all that has horrified my life."

Edward nodded as though this were a typical affair. "I see, well I won't probe you with any more questions, however, I do hope you will stay with me for a while. Let us just talk, I get awful lonely during these hours and could use a bit of company."

He smiled warmly at her and she returned his gesture. He was merely a stranger, and an adult male one at that, but it didn't matter to her. There was something about his atmosphere, something in the warmth of his hand that made her feel okay.

"Alright." She responded.

Edward and Christine held sympathetic hands as they walked through the lonely streets of Paris, taking about different things and people. Edward was special; Christine soon found out, the way her held her hand was unlike any she ever felt in such a long time. He didn't hold her hand at arms' level like a boyfriend, but held her hand up as though he were supporting her.

And that's exactly what he did.

Edward would comment on certain things here and there but politely listened to his younger companion most of the time. Smiling he was when she would criticize her so-called friend and chorus peers and laughing when she would insult her present instructress.

"…and then she says "My God, it stinks in here.", and flaps her hand like an invalid when she doesn't smell much better than pig's dung herself!"

Edward laughed bountifully. "Well, she seems like the charmer."

Christine smiled at her description of Carlotta and discovered that she was turning her teacher into some sort of cartoon that grew stretchy and rubbery in mind's eye, adjusting to all the absurd descriptions she made of her.

"Yes, I don't know how in the world an oaf like she could possibly be engaged to a man like Ar—"

She stopped in mid-pronunciation.

Edward looked down at her. "Christine?"

She involuntarily rubbed the back of her neck. "Umm…this man…"

"Whom?"

"Er…Carlotta's fiancé."

"Yes?"

"He's…her fiancé."

Edward smiled slightly in humor. "This I know."

She didn't see his smile; her eyes looked straightforward with a vortex of emotions and pain. Edward became serious again; he would know how to handle her.

"Christine?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"Do you still have those roses I sold you?"

"Yes, I do."

"Have you given them to anyone yet?"

She became silent for a moment. "Only the red one."

"I see, and to whom, if I may?"

The confusion and love in her eyes told him all. "I am…not sure."

He nodded as though it made perfect sense. "And the white ones?"

"I still haven't given them away."

He nodded again and chose his words carefully. "When you do, give them to the ones who need it most. Remember also that sometimes a white rose can be just as powerful as it's rouge sister."

She stared and blinked only once at his riddle and then face forward again and nodded.

It was as though he read her mind. "I think you'll understand soon enough." He said with a small chuckle.

"I hope." She responded quietly, and then waited. "Edward?"

"Yes?"

"How do you know when you…love someone?" She didn't know if that was the right word.

His eyebrows went up quickly. "That's quite a question, young lady. I suppose, however, it is when you…" He waited while he searched for the accurate words. "…when there is a certain completion in every feeling of your being, an abundance that feels can overflow forever. An endless need and fulfillment that has no end, and no beginning, and in some kind of ironic way, it could be said a finalized eternity."

The answer didn't satisfy her. It seemed overused, absurd, and fanciful.

"I feel love is like a chess game," She said finally. "All about the manipulation of certain pieces coming to together, and fall of one's side surrendering to another. Where no one side is ever safe or equal and everything is divided into certain colors, certain strategies all colliding just to prolong an emotional war that would never suffice."

Edward listened to her explanation intently and roused his eyebrows again. He turned and faced her dead in the eye. "That's quite advanced for a young lady, very astute and precise. And yes, that is love, but only a part of it. Your business is not yet completed, my dear, for you are still young and still growing. Truth be told, I do not believe even the most advanced Aristotelian philosophy can completely pin down the true concept of this emotion. It is bigger than you and I. But you must never abort finding out for yourself, because you'll never be happy, and must live in a mystery all your life. If your words serve, _every war_ must eventually end."

Something in the context of his words popped something out of her heart as though it were a bubbly bottle of Brandy. In the distance, the skies were giving only the tiniest warnings to turn pastel against the upcoming dawn.

She quickly twisted her head towards where she came. There _was_ still time left.

"Christine?"

She turned and faced Edward. She smiled and embraced him.

"Thank you so much, for everything." She said. "I must carry out my…unfinished business."

Edward smiled warmly at the girl and returned her embrace. "Go." Was he said.

She turned away immediately and hurried back without another word; no need to, she knew she would see him again.


	23. The Charming Snake and Her Lovely Foes

**Author's Notice:** Hey, hey, hey all you wonderful people. I still remained (though strained) loyal to you in my promise to keep this story alive. I really like the darkness and manipulation used in this chapter and hope you guys can see how gradually Christine is physcologically changing. This also opens new doors of Arthur's mentality but I prompt all my readers to keep reading because the story is still not over yet. I hope guys can understand the vase metaphor I use at around the end of the chapter. HINT: Try comparing the vase to Christine during Arthur's speech. Anyways, I hope you guys all had a Merry Christmas and enjoy a happy new Year with your families. Here is my late present to you all. Thanks to all who read and reviewed. Constructive critism is always welcomed. Have a nice day. :)

Mood Music Used: Sixousie and the Banshees "Face to Face". Highly recommended.

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_Chapter Twenty-Three: The Charming Snake and Her Lovely Foes_

* * *

Christine took some forgotten steps on the edge of the opera house and climbed everything else in between her and the balcony leading into her dorm.

Along the climb, she was calculating things fast in her mind, how she would handle her situation. After all, she couldn't just keep passing by Arthur as though nothing ever happened. Something must be done.

As she finally crawled over the post of the balcony she took note of how dark things were around her. The air was so cold and quiet as though no one was home.

To her horror, someone was.

Time only made a second after she entered her dorm that the door she went in shut immediately after her. Upon it, there was a gloved hand.

The other gloved hand immediately reach up and cupped over her mouth, caging in the gasp she was about to give. The figure twisted her around so that he held her from behind, she unable to see him.

The familiar voice sent chills down her spine.

"I have been thinking, my sweet…" He purred icily into her ear. "That I have been too easily influenced by your lustful ways, and now you have worn my patience thin with your fickle desires…"

Her breath wouldn't cease to quiver loudly through her nostrils.

"Remember that I am always your angel, but more importantly, I am you master. For the past while now, that position has blurred between us with my giving in to your skin. It is time I show you who is the true conductor of this music we make."

He twisted her to face him and kept his hand over her mouth whilst he began to walk forward, forcing her to walk back.

"You have fogged my vision with your lusty bliss, you have thawed my senses with your hot touch. Even more, you have clouded my judgment with your adolescent charm…"

He pushed her onto her bed and he immediately pinned her down with his weight.

"You have been slipping out from your dorm after dark for many nights now and never return till much later. Now, what I'd love to know is where—and to _whom_—does my student retreat to for these past lonely nights?"

He finally lifted his hand from her mouth, but her lips were still kept pressed. Her eyes bubbled with confusion and humiliation.

The silence didn't ease his temper as he pressed himself harder on her. The pressure between their bodies was beginning to throb with both pain and pleasure. "I _said_ to whom do you go to after dark?"

Her eyes never left his as her skin looked milky against the obscurity of the dark. Her large and scared brown eyes glossed with shame and bewilderment.

"What would you do to me if I didn't tell you?" Was all she asked in ice, not fear.

She saw his green eyes shift texture a bit in surprise of her answer and realized how hard he had been pressing his body into her. He eased on the pressure, but still remained on top. He searched for the words, and then tried to maintain his threatening tone.

"I have always felt with you with such a sweet aura of purity and warmth and now…"

The breeze caught his voice.

"Now what, Erik?" She whispered.

His heart began beating again whilst his mind raced for something articulate to say.

"Now things are different…_you_ are different…" He felt foolish to say.

"I am not different, I am only changing."

The response both perplexed and frustrated him as he fully regained his anger.

He took his large hands and pinned her tiny wrists painfully to the mattress.

"Now you listen to me, you little _snake_." He hissed to her, his voice trembling with fury. "You have gotten away with your sins for the last time, you are not to go or leave anywhere besides where you're needed. If I discover an absence due to your sexual _instability_, I _will_ snap the sickness out of you and that pig-of-a teacher of yours. This is a last chance, is this in any way unclear?"

She was already trembling and swallowing hiccups by then. "No." She whimpered. She cowered before his flared nostrils and horrifically narrowed eyes. Only when she had removed his mask did she see him as brutally furious.

"Good…" He purred acidly. He lowered his head and neared her face as she turned away. "You are mine, only mine and no one else's, remember that."

She shivered with fear and pleasure when he brushed her ear lobe down to the side of her jaw in a single, burning kiss.

He gave a rare hint of a smirk as he lifted himself up off from her. He saw over his shoulder dawn was approaching fast and with a final glance at her form frozen to the bed did he usher away.

He was about to leave when he paused in his step. "Oh…" He began turning only his head to her. "A bit late to say, but Happy Birthday."

With a whip of his cloak, he vanished.

Christine just stayed paralyzed for a few seconds taking in the horrible weight of her eternal bound. When she finally felt her heart sink, she sobbed into the covers. These tears, however, were not of despair or even fear.

Later that morning, Christine and Meg hobbled together to get to their rehearsal on time and endured yet another unpleasant day with the likes of Carlotta's musky stench.

During that entire rehearsal, Christine saw only scraps of the phantom-like Arthur's figure dab in and out of her peripheral vision. She always felt his penetrative stare and only once did she make full eye contact with him; it felt like drowning. The entire while it seemed like Arthur was analyzing her, calculating her, to see when she'd be in her next heat.

She felt like an animal. Even Erik knew she was an animal, _a lowly snake_.

Finally Carlotta concluded the session with her usual poisonous threats, whipping insults and the poppy-veined glares. Perhaps because of Christine's hatred for her had grown so black and bottomless, she thought she saw her usual flabby midriff fatten in growth.

She moved along with the other chorus girls, but at a distanced, almost feeble pace. She walked as though she were too old to bear it, with her back hunched over with age and fatigue.

She forced herself to walk past Arthur who never took off his icy blue eyes off her, and cringed in hopeless dread when he wordlessly took her hand. "Come." Was all he said before pulling her through the black curtains.

She slipped between more curtains and passageways in numb melancholy before she was once again caged in with her lover in his dorm.

He locked the door before facing her quietly. Silence etched the air for a few minutes before he cracked his trademark smirk. "You knew this would happen. You knew I had wanted you and you succumbed to me. Now that we know each other's intentions, let's drop the act, shall we?"

She stood there facing the floor. "What are you talking about, Arthur?"

He chuckled once. "Let's not play games, Ms. Daae. That part of our history is over."

She looked up him. The words scared her. "_Our_ history?"

"This charade of "foolish girly crush on a teacher" and "perverted instructor" is a phase long behind us. No more asking questions, for now I seek an answer."

Her heart bounced. "What do you want from me?"

His crooked lips curled deviously. "Why, just yourself."

Her stomach dropped as though she were falling amazing heights. Her breath became shaky and her eyes grew wide. "_What did you say?_"

He kept smirking as those mischievous eyes came closer to her in his step. He looked down on her from his tall stature. "Be mine, Christine Daae."

His voiced trilled in seductive malice. She shivered under every breath that tickled the erect hairs on her neck.

His words pushed her back a bit as she stumbled to keep up. She sent a hand upon her spinning forehead and looked at him in horror.

"Arthur, you—we…you're Carlotta's fiancé! You're practically her husband! How can you—?"

He stepped forward and clenched her shoulders together. "A mere setback is all that _witch_ is, she'll just be a nasty tiny part in my life I alone will have to remember."

Her eyes kept stretching in terror. Everything was beginning to spin. "Then why? Why did you—?"

"Why did I is not important right now. Let's just say my ignorant bride is a mere…link to my business here. She has eaten away at my sanity long enough. Her cruelty and jealousy has driven me to the absolute edge and I cannot take it anymore!"

He whipped away and leaned over his desk in temper. "You couldn't understand."

She simply stood there and waited. When he turned around again to face her, she trembled in fear.

"Or perhaps…you could."

She swallowed. "What is it you are driving at?"

He returned to be directly in front of her face. "I know all about the history between you and Carlotta from the other chorus girls and from Carlotta herself. You are quite the toast of the opera house, Ms. Daae. "Little toad", "Destroyer of pyramids", and " dirty tart" are only a few of the aliases commonly used under your good name. You are debated on constantly and yet no one seems to know the real you, do they? _Of course_ they don't, you are far much better than that, than all of those brats and whores you have to deal with. You have suffered much and now I want to cleanse you of your misery. I know you possess great talent that surpasses all these second-class knaves. With my wealth and connections, Christine, I can reveal you to the world. You would be famous, rich, and have everything you could possibly want."

His voice stretched and moaned with manipulation that twisted her mind and heart in all directions. Her mind was beginning to unravel but her heart was still wound as tightly as ever.

He took hold of her shoulders and stared at her dead in the eyes. "Come with me, Christine, and I can help you shine. I can give you all your heart's…" At this point his hands brushed down past her breasts. "…and body's desire. There is nothing I would deny you…if only you would not deny me."

She stared into those dangerous blue eyes that violated her brown. She staggered backwards in weightlessness and tried to regain footing. She cowered back until she reached his desk and fondled with a glass vase. Her hands were tingling all over.

"A-And you suppose I will just run away with you while you're still engaged to Carlotta? Believe it or not, Arthur, I still have my dignity, and I will _not_ be your mistress. Witch or not, Carlotta is still your wife by God if not by law!"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Don't even _begin_ with that Catholic rubbish, do you think anyone could actually love that—_thing?_ I sure as hell cannot. Her use for me has ended, and I have already made sure she won't degrade me with her fatuous nonsense ever again."

Her hands kept wringing around the vase. "Oh really? And why is that?"

She forced herself to look directly at him when he didn't answer immediately.

"You know how to keep a secret, Christine?"

Her heart skipped a beat.

"W-What is it, Arthur?"

"She won't ever bother me again because she is limited—bound by another law, if you will."

She quivered. "How so?"

He approached her one last time as he brushed a stray lock away from her face.

"Christine, Carlotta is pregnant."

Her heart stopped dead in mid-beat.

"What?" Was all she could hoarse out.

Arthur nodded quietly. "She has been pregnant for months now." He scoffed at himself as he looked away in disgust. "Yep, just goes to show what a bad night and an overdose of brandy can do to you." He chuckled bitterly. "Take my advice and never drink, it makes you do…stupid things."

Her hands could practically feel the glass split from the pressure.

He sighed. "But these things happen for a reason, and now Carlotta will be anchored to Paris by the baby. Thusly, giving _us_ the space to escape."

She shook her head in disbelief. "I haven't agreed to any escape with _you_, Arthur. With as much loathe as I have for her, I cannot leave Carlotta's baby fatherless."

"If the baby doesn't meet their father, what loss could they possibly feel for someone they have never known? And besides, think of all the torture you have endured from her, from all those bitches-of-chorus-mates you put up with. Now, you don't have to put up with it. All it takes is one night, a couple of train tickets, and the rest is history. All this shit you can finally leave behind you…"

The glass finally cracked between her hands as blood began to trickle unnoticed down its glaze. The humiliation and hatred for everyone she knew now was in a full boil as vengeance began to blacken her soul.

He rested his hands on her shoulders and rubbed them from behind whilst his mouth crept close to her ear.

"Be mine, Christine Daae, and you'll have the respect you deserve. The wealth that's yours, and the love you so dearly crave, it's _all _yours. But most importantly, if you become mine, you'll have the one thing that you've desired more than any riches or adoration…"

He brushed her hair away from her ear so he could be heard loud and clear. Another crack of the glass echoed in the far distance.

"…your freedom."

The last thing she remembered hearing was the full-blown shattering of the vase as it crashed into the floor.


	24. Take My Advice

**AN:** Yes, I know it took forever for this update. Just be kind enough to leave a review on your way out, please. :)

_Chapter 24: Take My Advice_

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Arthur apathetically glanced at the broken glass at the floor.

"Oh dear, careful." He blankly put. "Excuse me for a minute. In the meantime, take a seat."

As he tried to sit her down on his bed, Christine's blood suddenly shot up hotter and angrier than she ever felt her whole life. She bolted back up from the mattress and pushed Arthur back with a quick, painful hand.

"No Arthur, you excuse me. I have to go right now. "

As she tried to push pass him, Arthur's fast hands swooped and caught her quivering arm. Whether this trembling was due to her fury or fear, she didn't know, but it was destructive enough to bring down entire populaire if she wanted to.

At the thought, she once more mentally chastised herself: what an animal she truly was becoming.

"Hey, hey, hey, what's the rush? We're in the middle of a chat here! Don't you forget that I am first and foremost your teacher, little lady!"

Instantly Christine shot back. "_The hell you are!_ What you are, Mr. Danteillo is a horrid father, backstabbing husband, and a detestable, manipulative con-artist! Well, I am through with these mind games! I want no part in this odious plot against your wife and child! In fact, as soon as I am out of room, I will come to her with the truth!"

Arthur, at first frozen in his stance at Christine's words, suddenly became much more relaxed and crossed his arms—much in the same fashion as he did when he would critique some of the ballerina's moves.

Christine, not thinking twice of Arthur's indifference, turned around again and reached for the door handle. As she pulled the door open a creak, Arthur's voice came back in a cool, almost taunting manner.

"Do you honestly think she'd believe you, Christine? In fact, do you think anyone would? I am adored by her and the rest of the populaire. This I am aware of. Before you go running out like a fool in front of everyone, consider that what you have to say will sound like gibberish to them. I mean, they'll probably think to themselves _'What does she know? For all we know, she's just a twitter patted little twat, delusional by fictional romantic promises made by a married man!'_ "

During his whole speech, Christine stood frozen at the door with her back facing him. As logic began to pile on in her mind, she realized that Arthur was absolutely right. No one would believe her. She'd look like a heartbroken fool whilst Arthur would deem the role of a sympathizing, good-natured teacher.

Arthur took advantage of this hesitation to approach her, tongue armed and ready for its last blow. With a chilly caress on her shoulders, he brushed the hair away from her ear with one hand, while the other gently rested on the open door.

"So, my dear, let's not turn things ugly and embarrass ourselves. I'd much rather be your friend than your enemy."

With that, Arthur gave a swift tap with the flat palm of his hand and closed the door shut again. With his free hand, he gently turned Christine around to face him and lifted her chin up, forcing her eyes to be raped by his.

"But I must warn you," He continued. "I will _not_ hesitate to put you in a mental institute should you propose another threat to my career and reputation. There, you can blabber all the nonsense you want, and no one will give a good Goddamn about it. Crazy and alone. Is that what you want?"

Christine, trembling now, felt all her willpower at an end. She choked between tears as she whimpered "No…"

For the first time since she met him, Christine now found Arthur's smile hideous and internally churned with disgust when he brushed his dry lips against her cheek.

"Good." Was all he purred when he at last backed off and gave her space. He turned around and fished around the edge of his room for a broom to sweep away the broken glass, red-tainted, on the floor. The cuts on Christine were dry now, but reeked of misery, and the red stains on her arm laced under her forearms in an ugly braid.

"I really hate having to be rude to such a lovely guest." He nonchalantly commented as he swept up a good portion. "I do honestly care about you, Christine, which is why I offered you this chance for a new life in the first place. "

He then disposed of the collected glass in the nearby waste basket. He looked back up at her.

"My offer still stands when you decide to change your mind."

Christine, still shaken, stood silent looking at her feet. Arthur then took notice of her blood-stained arms and exited briefly to the adjacent bathroom, returning to her with a damp face towel.

With a gentle tug at her arm, Arthur nudged her to sit down on the nearby bench. Christine immediately complied.

"Oh, come now, darling." Cooed Arthur as he carefully cleaned away her blood. "I loved it so much more when you smiled. I know it seems a bit troublesome now…"

Christine, biting her bottom lip at the sting of the water, looked up at him.

"…But in time you'll soon discover that having a friend like me is not all that bad."

He then kissed her again on the nape of her neck. Upon feeling her shiver, Arthur then realized he would need a bit more of a push to edge her to him.

What strength this little lady did have. Of course, the willpower of youth is a tough one to tire out. The chase however, as Arthur saw it, was just the fun of it.

"Would you like some tea, my dear?" Arthur asked sweetly as he rose from the bench.

Taking the bait for what seemed like the only nice thing Arthur has offered since she got there, she quietly nodded her head.

With an unseen smile, Arthur snuck away momentarily, leaving Christine time to ponder.

_'I don't care if people won't believe me,'_ she thought. _'That doesn't mean I will become Arthur's mistress. I have dignity and I intend to keep it that way. He may have reason for me keeping my silence, but he has nothing against me to hold me as his lover.'_

Christine knew that it was now war, and that she must find a way to uncover the truth and expose Arthur for who he is. However, the temptation of a warm cup of tea was all too great to pass for this single, stinging moment.

It's just tea, nonetheless, what could happen?

Arthur came back with two cups balanced on an elegant oblong-shaped plate. "Here you go…" He said as he handed the closest cup to her.

Christine silently accepted the elixir and found the swirling waves of steam and the heat against her closed hands tantalizing. Without a second thought, she downed the precious liquid, unaware of the triumphant eyes Arthur made to her over the brim of his own cup.

He absently pushed the contents of his pocket further down in their protection, hoping that she didn't notice the small clank of the vials containing the manipulative brandy.


End file.
